I did ask for a BACS payment. GWR told me that they could not do this and rather "snootily" told me to check my card details. As I said earlier, GWR have never had any problems in taking money from the same card in the past.

You are quite correct. But I claimed for a 60 minute delay, not a 59 minute one - when I queried this and asked for an explanation of the 59 minute payment........I got no answer to that question.

I do not, along with probably the overwhelming majority of rail passengers, time my rail journeys to the second. According to my (pretty accurate and fairly expensive) Swiss wrist watch, the train I caught arrived in Warminster arrived at 2202 - exactly one hour after the cancelled train should have - according to the GWR website.

If my train did arrive at Warminster 1 second early - why could not GWR tell me that ............especially as I had asked that specific question in my appeal ? If I was 59 minutes and 59 seconds late and not 60 minutes, I would have to accept that. End of story !!  I would not be impressed..............other forum members have referred (above) to GWR being "mean" and "poor".................I can think of several other four letter words that could also apply !!

I must say that I find GWR's performance way less than satifactory. My train was cancelled, the next train was crowded with only half of it in use, I was an hour late getting home, I claimed for an hour's delay, GWR paid me for a 30 - 59 minute delay and GWR won't tell me why.  Perhaps my expecting a satisfactory response from GWR is just too much wishful thinking..................

Grahame, I hate to nit-pick with you...............but.......... the "length of delay" times (GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) website) are; 15 - 29 minutes: 30 - 59 minutes: 60 - 119 minutes and over 120 minutes. The figures you quote appear to side with GWR in my dispute with GWR. I maintain that I was 1 hour (60 mins) late on their hourly service, but they (?) (and you ?) appear to be saying that I was only entitled to 25% refund of my return ticket fare because I have to be 61 minutes late to claim that. Just to greatly add to my annoyance they totally ignored my request for them to explain their decision. Just a robotic bland statement, saying in effect, "we are right, you are wrong" ...........

Someting I didn't mention in my first post. When they "awarded" me the 25% refund, they informed me that they would pay me by cheque and that I had to check my card details were correct. They never seem to have any problem taking my money from that card .............but when it comes to paying it back - a different story !

Complaint duly submitted ! 

I am torn between two possible outcomes here.......
1. Full payment of my claim.
2. GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) "dying in a ditch" by claiming that I was not 60 mins late, because the train I actually travelled on was 5 seconds early at Warminster !!

............I am left wondering which would give me the most satisfaction 

....------------ (insert TOC^▸ (Train Operating Company) of your choice) see this !!



(Today's Telegraph)

I recently submitted a delay repay claim for a 1 hour (60 min !) delay. My intended train from Romsey to Warminster was cancelled - I had to wait an extra one hour for the next train on this hourly service route. I cannot recommend Romsey station on a cold, dark & windy night.  According to my wristwatch, the second train arrived at my destination on time.

My claim was rejected and I was awarded 30 mins compensation. I appealed and asked for the reason why my claim was rejected. My appeal has been summarily rejected - "We have reviewed the information available to us and have upheld the original decision made".
My entirely reasonable request for an explanation has been ignored - all too common in modern day "customer service" departments. Are they too embarrassed to tell me that my second train actually arrived (according to GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) timing) a few seconds early at Warminster ? Or is a GWR hour only 59 minutes long ?

Just to add icing to the cake, the second train was 6 coaches long - announcements were made as to where to stand with your dog, horse, for 1st Class, etc. When it arrived, the rear 3 coaches were locked out of use - the remaining 3, with 2 loads of people therein, were "cosy". Yes, I can probably offer a reasonable explanation for this, but most of the people on this train were undoubtedly just accepting this as an all too common happening on the appalling service offered on this route nowadays. And ................the locked out part of the train was three refurbished coaches - the three that we were allowed to use looked tired and worn out............just like the passengers !

Difficult.................

..........but something that would help the "confused - but honest" traveller would be a common on-line ticket search/buy engine to be used by all who sell rail tickets.

I consider myself to be fairly savvy when it comes to getting the best rail fare when I want to go from A to B. The difficulty, as you rightly say, is for the unwary to not know when a particular ticket is, or is not, valid. Most of the websites are very poor when it comes to this particular point. All the websites seem to be "upgraded" regularly - but they never make it any clearer as to what the user may be buying. ALL the upgrades do little more than make the website look more "modern" and flashy - the act of just changing it does little more than confuse most users.

I still use the "old" GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) Mixing Deck site - yes, it looks agricultural (sorry to any forum members from the farming community !) .................but it tells me everything I want to know in a simple, straightforward fashion. I put in the date/time I want to travel and it tells me all the fares that are available, the name of the fare, and what trains these fares are available on. I don't want - or need - all the other junk that adorns the other websites: "Five get there first"  the current GWR ticket site tells me - no they don't, they are still trying to fathom out if the "Advance super off peak evening out half day return" - with a 49 to 72 year old rail card, is valid on the 15:20 from Temple Meads to Chippenham.

There is little point rationalising the tickets themselves if the would be customers still don't have a clue what they are buying.

The Queen Mary 2 has a lampost and a (US) fire hydrant fitted, simples !

"Reduced facilities"  =   NO facilities.

In a couple of years I can already hear GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) saying that the buildings are no longer cost effective. Warminster station will then be bulldozed - all that will remain will be two platforms, two bus shelters and the same two useless ticket machines that we have now...............unless they have already gone, they are not mentioned in GWR statement ! The footbridge is not necessary, the underbridge to the main car park will suffice - BUT there will be such a fall off in passengers that the car park will be sold to Persimmon.

Glad to see that you have added two more great works of fiction...............

After my last delayed foray on GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) I would suggest War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy............a mere 587,287 words.

A bit like the "wrong sort of snow" then  ? 

What's the difference between Evolyn saying.............


..........and Alstom saying........


............answers please, on the back of an HS2^▸ (The next High Speed line(s)) Advance ticket to Leeds.

Today's Telegraph:

Oh............................is that what those things are for ?? 





On that subject - a good pub quiz question:  How many times do the words "one pound" appear on a £1 coin   (no cheating now !!)

............... plus what looks very much like Malaysian flags !