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Title: Lois Avery - "My rant about train companies cashing in during poor weather" Post by: Lee on December 22, 2010, 16:16:44 From Chippenham People: (http://www.chippenhampeople.co.uk/groups/traffictransport/rant-train-companies-cashing-poor-weather/story-10411281-detail/story.html)
Quote from: Lois Avery My rant about train companies cashing in during poor weather I was on a train on Monday from Bristol to Chippenham when a member of First Great Western's staff announced that passengers using the wrong train would be charged penalty fares. This is all well and good. I agree that if you've bought an advance ticket you should use that train alone - in ordinary circumstances. What made me extremely angry was that the snow had delayed trains for hours, (I waited an hour and a half) some were cancelled, yet passengers were still going to be held to ransom over an advanced booking. So, if a passenger was booked on to a 1.30pm train but they saw that it was delayed by an hour and a half they weren't allowed to jump on the next available train (even if it came at 1.30pm) because it wasn't their specified train! Not only did First Great Western fail to provide a service throughout the day, they then thought it was acceptable to allow a self-righteous member of staff the privilege of reminding passengers of the rules. In my opinion, exceptional circumstances should be followed with relaxed rules. If you book a train but it's an hour or so late then chances are it will scupper all of your other plans, so why not be allowed to jump on the next train even though it's not 'yours'. It was made worse by the fact that the train wasn't full, there were plenty of seats and no one even bothered to follow up the warning by coming to actually check tickets. I had an open ticket so this didn't directly affect me. I just thought it was an interesting example of our rail network's shoddy service and poor customer service. Did you have problems on the trains this week? Let us know how you got on. Title: Re: Lois Avery - "My rant about train companies cashing in during poor weather" Post by: inspector_blakey on December 22, 2010, 16:25:36 If that story is all true, then I'd be inclined to agree that FGW were treating passengers pretty shoddily by expecting everyone with advance tickets to stick to their specified trains in amongst a myriad of delays and cancellations. Fair enough when the service is running normally but when the job has fallen to bits I really don't think that's acceptable.
I suppose there's always a question over whether that was indeed official policy from FGW mission control or if it was just a rogue "jobsworth" (hate the word but in this case it's descriptive) member of staff. Edited to fix "bold" all the way through. Oops. Title: Re: Lois Avery - "My rant about train companies cashing in during poor weather" Post by: Tim on December 22, 2010, 16:59:44 Rather counterproductive of FGW IF INDEED IT IS TRUE. Annoy passengers by delaying tehm by 1 1/2 hours and thereby entitle them to claim compensation.
Title: Re: Lois Avery - "My rant about train companies cashing in during poor weather" Post by: Brucey on December 22, 2010, 17:25:18 Train Manager (or whoever) was probably just reading off a script: "Welcome aboard the FGW service to x, this service will now call at x. CCTV blah, buffet blah, Penalty Fares blah."
A Bristol-London AP SLOUGH ticket states this in its restrictions (my bold) Quote Advance tickets are non-refundable. If the train the customer purchased a ticket for is cancelled or delayed by more than 60 minutes, special arrangements will be made to accommodate them on another train (although a seat cannot be guaranteed). If, as a result, customers decide not to travel, a refund will be offered on completely unused tickets and they will not be charged an administration fee. Title: Re: Lois Avery - "My rant about train companies cashing in during poor weather" Post by: basset44 on December 22, 2010, 21:21:53 Hi All,
Would like to say that on Monday arriving back at Gatwick, we were lucky, from Prague although I allowed plenty of time with my Advanced Tickets at least 3 hours we were delayed by over 4. FGW staff were more than helpfull and allowed travel and I would like to say thanks Basset Title: Re: Lois Avery - "My rant about train companies cashing in during poor weather" Post by: SDS on December 22, 2010, 23:24:49 Also is a rule in the PF scheme which states a PF cant be charged if that person has been given permission to travel on [the] train in question.
FGW can also refuse compensation in the current climate as "weather" is beyond the control of the railways. 45. Circumstances that are not within a Train Company^s control For the purposes of Conditions 42 and 43 [compo], circumstances that are not within a Train Company^s control include: ... (e) exceptionally severe weather conditions; ... I suspect they'd send you a comp ticket for use on FGW to keep you sweet. Title: Re: Lois Avery - "My rant about train companies cashing in during poor weather" Post by: JayMac on December 23, 2010, 01:27:11 I'd also go with the idea that the TM was just reading his 'script'. If the service was a Bristol TM starter then one of the announcements you will hear is a request for passengers with Advance tickets to check that they are on the service that tallies with their reservation. This announcement is then followed by the warning that if you are not on your booked service then you will be liable to pay the full open fare for your journey. A penalty fare is also an option in these circumstances but I've yet to hear PF's mentioned on HST's starting at Bristol. 'Full Open Fare' is the usual announcement.
Regardless of the problems with delays or cancellations to preceding services, this announcement still needs to be made as it is perfectly possible that there may be pax onboard with Advance tickets for a later service. Of course, one would hope that pax booked on earlier delayed/cancelled services would not face sanction. I'm fairly confident that FGW staff have not chinged pax in these circumstances. L. Avery's rant would appear to be unfounded. However I do like the term 'self-righteous member of staff'. Much better than 'jobsworth'. ;) Title: Re: Lois Avery - "My rant about train companies cashing in during poor weather" Post by: vacman on December 23, 2010, 12:38:31 you cannot be penalty fared for being on a restricted ticket!
Title: Re: Lois Avery - "My rant about train companies cashing in during poor weather" Post by: SDS on December 23, 2010, 13:56:26 Theres ways around that.
Withdraw the old ticket and just PF them as if they had no ticket. You can actually be PFd for being on certain types of restricted tickets, or charged the full SOS/FOS. I know of loads of PF trained collectors that do that. Title: Re: Lois Avery - "My rant about train companies cashing in during poor weather" Post by: Brucey on December 23, 2010, 14:00:28 you cannot be penalty fared for being on a restricted ticket! I believe section 12 of the NRCoC allows penalty fares to be charged for being on the wrong train.Title: Re: Lois Avery - "My rant about train companies cashing in during poor weather" Post by: Tim on December 23, 2010, 14:09:19 I thought that a PF couldn't be issued if you had an off peak ticket on a peak train, but hat if you had an invalid AP ticket then you were treated as if you had no ticket and a PF could be issued.
Title: Re: Lois Avery - "My rant about train companies cashing in during poor weather" Post by: JayMac on December 23, 2010, 14:41:11 That too, was my interpretation of the PF Rules. Off Peak on a Peak service then no PF should be issued. Advance on wrong service, then effectively no valid ticket is held, so a PF may be issued.
Title: Re: Lois Avery - "My rant about train companies cashing in during poor weather" Post by: SDS on December 23, 2010, 18:01:30 An off peak on peak then an excess should be issued. Refuse to pay the excess then its a different ballgame.
Same with off route tickets, but travel beyond vailidity can be PFd. AP can be PFd, as indeed your ticket is only valid for one specific train. Title: Re: Lois Avery - "My rant about train companies cashing in during poor weather" Post by: readytostart on December 23, 2010, 18:34:18 XC have been accepting Advance on any train on the correct (or previous) day to help those who have been disrupted through no fault of their own. It's been kept fairly quiet so that those who can travel at their booked time don't jump on the bandwagon.
Title: Re: Lois Avery - "My rant about train companies cashing in during poor weather" Post by: JayMac on December 23, 2010, 20:03:59 XC running bandwagons now are they? Gotta be better than a Vomiter..... :P ;) ;D
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