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Questions about the "Northern Only Day Ranger" one day rover ticket.

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trainsuser

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Good afternoon all forum members.

I have a question about the "Northern Only Day Ranger" one day rover ticket for £10.00 total. I just purchased another one of these tickets from one of my local train stations near where i work (Hayes & Harlington) for use tomorrow. Please see the attached photo in order to clarify exactly which train ticket i am enquiring about.

I am going to be making lots of journeys tomorrow and i understand that Northern Rail are not the most reliable of operators. Last time i used their services a lot were cancelled. So i am wondering if a service is cancelled than am i entitled to travel on the next available service with my "Northern Only Day Ranger" ticket if it is another TOC operating it? Or would i have to wait for the next Northern Rail operated service? This happened to me last time when a Northern Rail service was cancelled and i didn't know whether i could use the next service as a different TOC ran it so i waited for the next one so it would be good to know in advance? I presume there is a policy on this?

Also what time are the tickets valid until? Are they only valid until midnight or are they valid until a certain time (i think it may be around 04:00/05:00/06:00 but i can't remember exactly) in the early hours of the following morning just like Single and Return tickets are?

Finally does anyone know if there is any rail replacement buses anywhere on the Northern Rail network this weekend? I know it normally happens at weekends so i just wanted to check?

Thank you very much for any help.
 

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ForTheLoveOf

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Good afternoon all forum members.

I have a question about the "Northern Only Day Ranger" one day rover ticket for £10.00 total. I just purchased another one of these tickets from one of my local train stations near where i work (Hayes & Harlington) for use tomorrow. Please see the attached photo in order to clarify exactly which train ticket i am enquiring about.

I am going to be making lots of journeys tomorrow and i understand that Northern Rail are not the most reliable of operators. Last time i used their services a lot were cancelled. So i am wondering if a service is cancelled than am i entitled to travel on the next available service with my "Northern Only Day Ranger" ticket if it is another TOC operating it? Or would i have to wait for the next Northern Rail operated service? This happened to me last time when a Northern Rail service was cancelled and i didn't know whether i could use the next service as a different TOC ran it so i waited for the next one so it would be good to know in advance? I presume there is a policy on this?

Also what time are the tickets valid until? Are they only valid until midnight or are they valid until a certain time (i think it may be around 04:00/05:00/06:00 but i can't remember exactly) in the early hours of the following morning just like Single and Return tickets are?

Finally does anyone know if there is any rail replacement buses anywhere on the Northern Rail network this weekend? I know it normally happens at weekends so i just wanted to check?

Thank you very much for any help.
You are not entitled to use other operators' services unless disruption occurs to such an extent that you are prevented from completing your journey on the same day. In that case, every train company in a position to do so, must help you complete your journey (e.g. by accepting your ticket on their services or booking a taxi) or provide you with overnight accommodation).
 

Adlington

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https://www.northernrailway.co.uk/jpimedia
Hop on and off all day long. Kids go half price*

To qualify for this special offer, simply collect 3 tokens from your local newspaper on participating dates, complete the correct on-line form, download and print the form and buy your tickets from any staffed ticket office.




You can travel anywhere on the Northern network using Northern services. Hop on and off all day long. Depending on your home station, you can visit Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Southport, Sheffield, York and more with Northern.

Three tokens allow you to buy up to 4 Northern only Day Ranger tickets or Weekend Rover tickets which must all be used on the same day or weekend (depending on the ticket chosen). Travel is available between Monday 6 May - Sunday 14 July 2019.

Participating Papers - JPIMedia

Before deciding on your travel dates, please check for any planned engineering works that may affect your journey.
 
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Starmill

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You are not entitled to use other operators' services unless disruption occurs to such an extent that you are prevented from completing your journey on the same day. In that case, every train company in a position to do so, must help you complete your journey (e.g. by accepting your ticket on their services or booking a taxi) or provide you with overnight accommodation).
This not a particularly good statement of the position in response to @Trainuser's actual query, because the standard the operators have pledged to uphold is certainly significantly more compelling than this: Where there is significant disruption, the approved Code of Practice is clear:
Other railway undertakings
During disruptive incidents customers should not be discriminated against on the basis of operator. This includes customers travelling on railway undertaking specific tickets who have been re-routed onto another railway undertaking’s trains because of disruption.

And if anyone were charged twice for the same journey where they took an alternative train due to significant disruption:
Customers should not be required to pay more because of disruption. In the event that they are forced to pay more, ‘no quibble’ refunds should be pro-actively provided.
https://www.raildeliverygroup.com/about-us/publications.html?task=file.download&id=469771025

To ignore this and rely only on the above post would imply that if several Northern trains are cancelled, and the next Northern train is in 5 hours, but another operators train is running (something that I did once face when I was travelling on a Northern only ticket when my Northern service from Preston to Lancaster was cancelled), you are simply required to wait 5 hours. That is clearly ridiculous.

Note that as the document explains in 7.1 this only applies where 'CSL2' has been declared. The threshold for this is usually determined locally.

One might reply that the linked document is not enforceable because it is not legally binding, but I believe that we are all in agreement that it does not add value to the debate to reduce obligations between consumers and train operating companies (in both directions) to the legally binding ones only!
 

RJ

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I have a question about the "Northern Only Day Ranger" one day rover ticket for £10.00 total. I just purchased another one of these tickets from one of my local train stations near where i work (Hayes & Harlington) for use tomorrow. Please see the attached photo in order to clarify exactly which train ticket i am enquiring about.

You're only entitled to buy these tickets from stations served by Northern with the appropriate documentation from the offer. Why would you come onto this forum and bring what you aren't meant to be doing to the attention of those who can easily stop you from doing so?

For everyone else's understanding, what the OP is doing is bypassing the purchase requirements by taking advantage of the ticket issuer's lack of knowledge of the product. See https://www.northernrailway.co.uk/jpimedia

Presumably people will now fill their boots until Northern NLC restrict it.
 
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30907

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On the original question, I interpret the OP as talking about cancellation of individual services, not the sort of disruption covered by CSL2. In which case the same rule applies as to any other operator-specific ticket.
I can't think of a current Northern route shared with other operators which would normally require discretion.
 

Starmill

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You would definitely be rather unhappy if you were at Oxenholme waiting to catch the 1327 to Preston, and it were cancelled. The next Northern service is three hours later. There are a large number of alternative services.

If you were waiting for the 0559 from Lancaster to Oxenholme, and that were cancelled, the only alternative Northern service would be the 1323. Not a wait anybody should be asked to do, realistically.

Of course, if only one train were cancelled, you might not be able to argue there was significant disruption.
 

mm333

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I did the Cumbrian coast route on a Northern-only rover back in the days when both TPX and Northern ran from Barrow-in-Furness to Lancaster. The Carlisle-Lancaster service terminated short at Barrow and IIRC there was a couple of hours wait for the next Northern service and only an hours wait for the next TPX.

As the station was run by TPX, I spoke to someone at the station who spoke to TPX control who allowed me to travel on the next TPX to Preston for me to catch Northern services home to Leeds. And this was mid-afternoon, not towards the end of the day.

If in doubt, if you can, ask someone nicely!
 

ForTheLoveOf

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You would definitely be rather unhappy if you were at Oxenholme waiting to catch the 1327 to Preston, and it were cancelled. The next Northern service is three hours later. There are a large number of alternative services.

If you were waiting for the 0559 from Lancaster to Oxenholme, and that were cancelled, the only alternative Northern service would be the 1323. Not a wait anybody should be asked to do, realistically.

Of course, if only one train were cancelled, you might not be able to argue there was significant disruption.
Well, I agree that in practice it is unlikely that you will be forced to wait for 3, 4 or 5 hours if there isn't another Northern service within a reasonable time. Unfortunately I have to say that whilst it may be helpful to refer to RDG guidance for the purposes of customer service complaints, even taking these as far as the Rail Ombudsman, I don't think you'd get very far at Court trying to defend a RoRA or Byelaw prosecution if it came to it (which, in view of the circumstances, one would like to hope it never would)
 

dave87016

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Despite what it says northern social media team say you can actually purchase them at ANY TOC anywhere as long you only use it to travel on northern services
 

Spartacus

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Despite what it says northern social media team say you can actually purchase them at ANY TOC anywhere as long you only use it to travel on northern services

I'm guessing that had to change when a lot of services moved over to TPE, although I can't think of many ticket offices it would have affected. As I say though, this is perhaps this bit which I wouldn't worry about myself anyway.
 

RJ

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Despite what it says northern social media team say you can actually purchase them at ANY TOC anywhere as long you only use it to travel on northern services

And you believe them? You can buy from any TOC as long as it's at a station within Northern's network. If the suggestion is you can buy from anywhere in the UK without doing the promo, I wouldn't trust anyone except Northern's retail management team where it comes to individual members of staff contradicting official publicity.
 

RJH

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And you believe them? You can buy from any TOC as long as it's at a station within Northern's network. If the suggestion is you can buy from anywhere in the UK without doing the promo, I wouldn't trust anyone except Northern's retail management team where it comes to individual members of staff contradicting official publicity.

Does anything come up on the booking clerk's screen to advise of the requirement for an accompanying form, complete with tokens? I've bought many of these over several years, but more recently I've not been allowed to buy them more than the advertised three days in advance, often after the clerk has looked at the screen and apparently seen something. Surely there should be, from Northern's point of view, some safeguard to prevent the tickets being sold willy-nilly from any booking office.
 

Spartacus

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Does anything come up on the booking clerk's screen to advise of the requirement for an accompanying form, complete with tokens? I've bought many of these over several years, but more recently I've not been allowed to buy them more than the advertised three days in advance, often after the clerk has looked at the screen and apparently seen something. Surely there should be, from Northern's point of view, some safeguard to prevent the tickets being sold willy-nilly from any booking office.

I suspect either nothing comes up, they’ve been able to bluff their way around (which given the competency of some staff in issuing legit off area tickets isn’t surprising) or, if their plan IS fraud through delay repay, I doubt getting 3 copies of the Evening Post sent to them will be a burden.
 

ForTheLoveOf

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Whatever the actual rules on the use of tickets that should never have been issued are it would hardly be the first time that a member of Northern staff decided that it was appropriate to withdraw the ticket and insist on further payment.
The ticket stock that the ticket office has decided to use is of no relevance to the validity of the ticket. It's something that the passenger has no control over, and indeed the overwhelming majority of passengers wouldn't have a clue if the ticket office did use the "incorrect" stock. If they even realised, they might think it's intentional for one reason or another.

It would be very poor form of a guard to withdraw an otherwise entirely acceptable ticket merely because they didn't like the ticket stock used (rather than, for example, photographing it); it would be downright unacceptable of them to attempt to charge an additional amount.
 

Darandio

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The ticket stock that the ticket office has decided to use is of no relevance to the validity of the ticket. It's something that the passenger has no control over, and indeed the overwhelming majority of passengers wouldn't have a clue if the ticket office did use the "incorrect" stock. If they even realised, they might think it's intentional for one reason or another.

It would be very poor form of a guard to withdraw an otherwise entirely acceptable ticket merely because they didn't like the ticket stock used (rather than, for example, photographing it); it would be downright unacceptable of them to attempt to charge an additional amount.

What about the fact that the ticket wasn't bought at a staffed station within the Northern network?
 

tony_mac

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What about the fact that the ticket wasn't bought at a staffed station within the Northern network?
That's a good reason not to sell the ticket - I don't think that's a good reason to cause the passenger a problem later on.

(I have bought one before, on the train, which is also outside the rules. I wouldn't have complained if they had refused the sale, but I certainly would have complained if someone had withdrawn the ticket when I was 200 miles from home...)
 

Spartacus

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That's a good reason not to sell the ticket - I don't think that's a good reason to cause the passenger a problem later on.

(I have bought one before, on the train, which is also outside the rules. I wouldn't have complained if they had refused the sale, but I certainly would have complained if someone had withdrawn the ticket when I was 200 miles from home...)

I'm with you there 100%, a ticket may have been bought in perfectly good faith 'off area', no need to give a passenger hassle over what would otherwise be a perfectly valid ticket.
 
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ForTheLoveOf

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What about the fact that the ticket wasn't bought at a staffed station within the Northern network?
I don't see how that makes it invalid. It merely means you weren't necessarily entitled to buy the ticket in the same way you would be if you turned up at a station within the Northern network (having presumably paid for the coupons by way of the papers).

If a ticket office decided simply to sell you one of these tickets I don't see that there is anything wrong with that; they are effectively acting as Northern's agent, and Northern, in the guise of that agent, have decided to sell you a ticket they didn't promise they would sell you. Nothing wrong with that.

If Northern aren't happy with that they should review the contractual agreements and protections they've got in place to ensure it doesn't happen any more.
 

mmh

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Do we actually have any evidence that the ticket should only be issued by some ticket offices and not others?

The Northern webpage about the promotion is ambiguous. It says "any staffed station" in the promo blurb, only mentioning Northern stations in the T&C section.

Having completely fail
 

BlueFox

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Do we actually have any evidence that the ticket should only be issued by some ticket offices and not others?

The Northern webpage about the promotion is ambiguous. It says "any staffed station" in the promo blurb, only mentioning Northern stations in the T&C section.

The form is pretty clear. It says this at the top:

"To take advantage of this great Reach PLC newspaper offer, print off and complete this form, attach two tokens from a participating Reach PLC publication and take it to any staffed station within the Northern network. You can buy your Northern Day Rangers in advance or buy them on the day you want to travel.
This offer is only valid on Northern services and tickets must be issued at a staffed station within the Northern network. Please visit northernrailway.co.uk/timetables to view available Northern services. Please note this offer is not available on any other train operator’s services."
 
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