Delay Repay - Northern Rail 23 November 2024

[Potatopotato]

Hello

I am having trouble getting a delay repay claim from Northern for a journey to Braystones on 23 November 2024, the correspondence is copied below (slightly abridged) and I would appreciate comments on next steps - I just seem to be going back and forth



(i) My initial claim to Northern Rail was passed to Avanti and then rejected by Avanti
(ii) My appeal to Northern was rejected
(iii) I then wrote the letter copied below
(iv) Email exchange followed copied below

AS you can see, I have just sent a snother reply to Northern, which I don't expect to achieve much. Should I just proceed to claim via the smalls claims court or can anyone suggest a better route (or perhaps some magic wording I need to use) .

Many thanks


LETTER TO NORTHERN
-

I write regarding the above two claims which you have incorrectly rejected, with your assertion being that Avanti West Coast Trains are responsible. The journey concerned was as follows:​

​

Travel Date: Sat, 23 Nov 2024​

Departing: 07:07 from BIRMINGHAM NEW STREET to BRAYSTONES ​

​

Route Taken: ​

(i) Birmingham New Street to Carlise (Avanti West Coast Trains)​

(ii) Carlise to Workington. Service scheduled to continue via to Braystones arriving 1140; service was terminated prematurely at Workington with no onward arrangements.(Northern Rail)​

​

Ticket: ​

Braystones to Cheltenham Spa [Off-Peak Return] (copy attached below)​

Ticket was sold to me on-train by the guard on a Northern Rail service from Braystones to Carlisle earlier that week​

​

Details:​

• Following an overnight break of journey I resumed my travel from Cheltenham Spa to Braystones on Saturday 23 November 2024
• The Avanti trains 0707hrs departure from Birmingham News Street to Carlisle arrived at Carlisle slightly delayed.
• Despite the slight delay to the Avanti service I successfully made the connection onto a Northern rail Service Scheduled to run from Carlise to Braystones.
• Departure of the Northern Rail Service from Carlise was heavily delayed, by roughly an hour. The service continued to accrue delay and arrived at Workington at roughly 1200hrs, where the service was terminated prematurely.
• I requested onward travel assistance from the Station staff at Workington, nothing the the National Rail Conditions of Carriage require you to provide assistance to get passengers to their final destination.
• The Workington station staff informed me that no onward travel assistance would be provided and at my request endorse my ticket as a record of the poor service.
• I note that Braystones has no other public transport connections, and is very difficult to reach by a passenger arranging transport on their own. Using the available transport connections I eventually reached Braystones very late that afternoon, suffering a total delay to reaching my destination well in excess of 2 hours.

Summary:​

• Delay to reaching my destination well in excess of 2 hours
• Reason for delay: Northern rail failing to run services to Braystones on Saturday 23 November 2024.
• Delay Repay Claim: Full value of my ticket £161.70

You rejected my claim, and following appeal on the grounds that Avanti are responsible. However, it is Northern Rail than canceled services to Braystones, and failed to provide any arrangement for onward travel.​

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REPLY (1) FROM NORTHERN
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@We have checked the journey that you have claimed for and our records show that this service was operated by another train operator (Avanti West Coast). Therefore, we are unable to process your claim."​

EMAIL TO NORTHERN IN RESPONSE TO REPLY (1)

Many thanks for your email ​

​

The short delay to the Avanti service was not the reason for reaching my destination late.​

​

Departure of the Northern Rail service was also delayed, which meant that I made the connection. The fact that the Avanti service was late was therefore inconsequential.​

​

Delay repay is based on the actual cause of the delay to reaching the destination. The delay from Avanti was not the reason for my delay. ​

​

Despite being in the timetable, Northern Rail provided no services between Carlisle and Braystones on 23rd November. ​

​

Furthermore, when the service was prematurely terminated at Workington, no assistance was provided to get me to my destination. This last point is a clear breach of the National Rail Conditions of Travel.​

​

It is most disappointing that, despite Northern rail failing to run any services to Braystones from Carlisle, and leaving me stranded at Workington, you continue to accept no responsibility.​

​

Please provide the full delay repay, this is a clear breach of contract.​

REPLY (2) FROM NORTHERN

I have received this case from my colleague to investigate and advise as appropriate. I would like to offer my apologies for your experience when travelling on the 23rd of November 2024 from Cheltenham Spa to Braystones. ​

​

I have investigated the details of your journey and can see that we were not able to run services between Workington to Lancaster due to the severe weather conditions and our control team tried to arrange a rail replacement service, but due to the weather conditions, the operators were unwilling to run services for safety reasons. ​

​

There was a Do Not Travel in place which was updated on our platforms at 11:10am advising customers not to travel. Unfortunately, this would not be treated as a Delay Repay claim as you did not complete the full journey by train. You will be eligible for a partial refund.​

​

In recognition of your experience on this occasion, I have authorized £15.7 to cover the cost of your unused portion of your ticket from Carlisle to Braystones.​

​

I reiterate my apologies for any inconvenience caused. Looking forward to your reply.​

EMAIL TO NORTHERN IN RESPONSE TO REPLY (2)

I can confirm that none of the reasons you stated absolve you of your requirement to pay delay repay at the full rate (face value of the ticket).​

​

The service departing Carlisle was timetabled to call at Braystones. It was only whilst I was actually sitting on the service that the destination was changed to Workington, where the train terminated prematurely ​

​

Eventual arrival at my destination was well over 120mins late, and if I had waited to travel by train would have been approximately 24hours late.​

​

I require you to make a payment at the full amount since this clearly meets the requirements for delay repay at the full amount.​

 

[Starmill]

Have you had 8 weeks pass since the initial claim yet? Once this time has passed the Ombudsman will be able to look into your claim.

My guess is that you're after £161.70? You will easily be able to make that clear in your complaint to the Ombudsman. What's likely to happen then is the Ombudsman will basically just ask Northern if they accept liability for stranding you and if they do will they settle for £161.70. There is a chance Northern will agree at this stage.

 

[Southern Beau]

I have had this “pass the blame” circle with Avanti and Northern before. I was quick with responses and they rejected the same claim and passed on to each other around 6 times in 4 weeks.

I got sick of it, wrote an email telling them they have 7 days to squabble between themselves and stop acting like children. I also said any further correspondence from me would cost them £100 per email.
Likely unrelated, I then ended up with delay repay sent from both of them for the same journey.
And before the eagle eyed posters start criticising me, I only cashed one of the cheques!

 

[Starmill]

You could also ask Northern for a deadlock letter which can disapply the 8 week minimum timeframe, although this usually takes so long that the minimum time for the claim to be outstanding has passed anyway by the time they send it.

I have had this “pass the blame” circle with Avanti and Northern before. I was quick with responses and they rejected the same claim and passed on to each other around 6 times in 4 weeks.

I got sick of it, wrote an email telling them they have 7 days to squabble between themselves and stop acting like children. I also said any further correspondence from me would cost them £100 per email.
Likely unrelated, I then ended up with delay repay sent from both of them for the same journey.
And before the eagle eyed posters start criticising me, I only cashed one of the cheques!

Unhappily, judging by the most recent reply, it seems Northern are going to dig in on arguing that because they didn't provide a train for the customer they aren't obligated to pay for the usual compensation for the delay. Quite where this reasoning comes from I can't fathom, but that's what they seem to me to be getting at. Therefore I'd just proceed straight to the Ombudsman.

If the OP hasn't requested any compensation for the costs of their alternative travel, just the compensation due under Delay Repay at usual rates, not exceeding the face value of the ticket, then I think there's a chance the Ombudsman will get a positive resolution.

I know it does take a decent amount of time to check you've dotted your is and crossed your ts when you send everything in to the Ombudsman, and that it's problematic that you don't get anything in recompense for wasting your time doing all that, but it probably would be worth taking the hit of hassle in this case. The realistic alternative is a County Court claim, which is even more hassle than the Ombudsman. If you don't like the Ombudsman's final adjudication you can still go to the County Court in the usual way.

 

[Potatopotato]

Thanks for the advice, your comments have all been very useful

I had not realised that the Ombudsman decision was not binding on me, and that I would still have potential to pursue through the small claims court.

Northern's logic that, by leaving me stranded at Workington a delay repay claim becomes invalid, is hugely frustrating. Frankly, such a response is utterly unacceptable and worthy of a complaint in itself;

If the reply to my most recent email is not favourable I will request a deadlock letter.

Are there any specific sections of the Conditions of Travel that I should quote in my claim to the ombudsman?

Many thanks

 

[AlterEgo]

To be clear, the Ombudsman’s decisions are not enforceable in law and not binding on either you or the train company. It’s not a regulator in that sense.

 

[furlong]

The train operator does have to comply with decisions.

 

[Starmill]

To be clear, the Ombudsman’s decisions are not enforceable in law and not binding on either you or the train company. It’s not a regulator in that sense.

They are not binding according to statute, as a written decision made by the ORR or handed down in a judgement would be. However my understanding is that providers registered with the Ombudsman are obligated by licence to comply with its 'adjudications'. When a consumer asks the the Ombudsman to proceed to the adjudication this is the final step after Ombudsman-led negotiation has failed to work anything out. If the consumer rejects the adjudication, it becomes pretty irrelevant what it says, but the Ombudsman won't take any further action. If they accept it, the consumer is entitled to rely on it. So it's not the law, but it is better than nothing.

 

[Potatopotato]

Update: Northern have provided a deadlock letter stating that

(i) there was a "do not travel" notice
(ii) I did not complete my journey by rail

both are spurious

The NRCoT do not include any reference to "Do not travel", the conditions link delay repay to the published timetable on the day (and all my trains were in the timetable fo the day). The second reason (did not complete the journey by rail) makes my blood boil...if this were the case then TOC's could void delay repay by curtailing delayed services at the penultimate station and then run the train as ECS to the destination.

I've submitted an application to the ombudsman

 

[yorksrob]

Quoting of "Do not travel" notices is just the industry trying to weasel out of its obligations.

If a train was shown as running, it was shown as running.

Nothing surprises me about the shysters though.

 

[AlterEgo]

Quoting of "Do not travel" notices is just the industry trying to weasel out of its obligations.

Quite.

OP, I look forward to hearing how this plays out.

 

[Starmill]

Thank you for pursuing this claim. It's certainly a point that's been raised on here in the past that many of us argue there is no effect on compensation outcomes if your journey is concluded by train or by replacement road transport at the provision of the operator, or if neither can be arranged, despite the best efforts of the consumer, by alternative third party means, such as walking or a taxi or even a hitchhike. Clearly there is a competing belief that when no replacement service is offered there's also no entitlement to any compensation under the usual scheme, or perhaps a belief that a delay to the first service the next day wouldn't be considered late. I personally think they're nonsense as I've said previously. Under the terms of Delay Repay the cause of the delay is immaterial, so this doesn't come into it.

Quoting of "Do not travel" notices is just the industry trying to weasel out of its obligations.

If a train was shown as running, it was shown as running.

Nothing surprises me about the shysters though.

I'm unsure how they think these "notices" really work, but even if we accepted that they do have force in the contract for travel, they clearly can't be at all relevant if they're published hours after the consumer sets off on their journey. Northern themselves admit that the message wasn't distributed until 1110, when the traveller was already underway with them, and some five hours after setting off.

 

[Parham Wood]

To be clear, the Ombudsman’s decisions are not enforceable in law and not binding on either you or the train company. It’s not a regulator in that sense.

Why is there any point going to the Ombudsman then?

 

[Starmill]

Why is there any point going to the Ombudsman then?

If you look at #7 and #8 this was answered, they're psuedo-enforceable but not by courts or bailiffs, only by ORR. A County Court may or may not also find the decision persuasive, I don't know.

 

[island]

A County Court may or may not also find the decision persuasive, I don't know.

Indeed and there were some amendments to the civil procedure rules a few months ago aimed at promoting use of alternative dispute resolution.

A County Court may or may not also find the decision persuasive, I don't know.

Indeed and there were some amendments to the civil procedure rules a few months ago aimed at promoting use of alternative dispute resolution.