Train GraphicClick on the map to explore geographics
 
I need help
FAQ
Emergency
About .
Travel & transport from BBC stories as at 09:15 28 Mar 2024
- Easter travel warning as millions set to hit roads
- Man suffers life-threatening injuries after train stabbing
- Baltimore Bridge Collapse
Read about the forum [here].
Register [here] - it's free.
What do I gain from registering? [here]
 02/06/24 - Summer Timetable starts
17/08/24 - Bus to Imber
27/09/25 - 200 years of passenger trains

On this day
28th Mar (1988)
Formal end to carrying coffins by BR (link)

Train RunningCancelled
06:57 Swansea to London Paddington
07:43 Swansea to London Paddington
08:18 London Paddington to Cardiff Central
08:30 London Paddington to Weston-Super-Mare
09:00 Bristol Temple Meads to London Paddington
09:12 London Paddington to Cardiff Central
09:29 Weston-Super-Mare to London Paddington
09:30 London Paddington to Bristol Temple Meads
09:46 Westbury to Swindon
10:15 London Paddington to Cardiff Central
10:30 London Paddington to Weston-Super-Mare
10:41 Cardiff Central to London Paddington
11:00 Bristol Temple Meads to London Paddington
11:05 Swindon to Westbury
11:16 London Paddington to Cardiff Central
11:23 Weston-Super-Mare to London Paddington
11:30 London Paddington to Bristol Temple Meads
11:50 Cardiff Central to London Paddington
12:15 London Paddington to Cardiff Central
12:17 Westbury to Swindon
12:30 London Paddington to Weston-Super-Mare
13:15 Swindon to Westbury
14:19 Westbury to Swindon
15:14 Swindon to Westbury
Short Run
05:40 Bristol Temple Meads to Penzance
06:38 Weymouth to Gloucester
06:54 Taunton to London Paddington
07:12 London Paddington to Cardiff Central
08:25 Okehampton to Exeter Central
08:34 Exeter Central to Okehampton
08:38 London Paddington to Westbury
09:50 Cardiff Central to London Paddington
Delayed
05:03 Penzance to London Paddington
05:23 London Paddington to Swansea
05:33 Plymouth to London Paddington
05:55 Plymouth to London Paddington
06:00 London Paddington to Penzance
06:05 Penzance to London Paddington
06:50 Westbury to Weymouth
07:10 Penzance to London Paddington
08:03 London Paddington to Penzance
08:30 Liskeard to Looe
08:35 Plymouth to London Paddington
09:04 London Paddington to Plymouth
An additional train service has been planned to operate as shown 09:13 Bristol Temple Meads to Gloucester
09:37 London Paddington to Paignton
10:04 London Paddington to Penzance
10:23 London Paddington to Oxford
10:35 London Paddington to Exeter St Davids
10:50 Penzance to Cardiff Central
PollsOpen and recent polls
Closed 2024-03-25 Easter Escape - to where?
Abbreviation pageAcronymns and abbreviations
Stn ComparatorStation Comparator
Rail newsNews Now - live rail news feed
Site Style 1 2 3 4
Next departures • Bristol Temple MeadsBath SpaChippenhamSwindonDidcot ParkwayReadingLondon PaddingtonMelksham
Exeter St DavidsTauntonWestburyTrowbridgeBristol ParkwayCardiff CentralOxfordCheltenham SpaBirmingham New Street
March 28, 2024, 09:16:24 *
Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
Forgotten your username or password? - get a reminder
Most recently liked subjects
[146] West Wiltshire Bus Changes April 2024
[117] would you like your own LIVE train station departure board?
[80] Return of the BRUTE?
[63] Infrastructure problems in Thames Valley causing disruption el...
[49] Reversing Beeching - bring heritage and freight lines into the...
[27] CrossCountry upgrade will see 25% more rail seats
 
News: A forum for passengers ... with input from rail professionals welcomed too
 
   Home   Help Search Calendar Login Register  
Pages: [1]
  Print  
Author Topic: Issues with Merseyrail tickets from Trainline  (Read 3938 times)
grahame
Administrator
Hero Member
*****
Posts: 40687



View Profile WWW Email
« on: January 02, 2021, 23:05:36 »

Outside our area - but an interesting issue with ticketing.

Quote
I used Trainline to buy a GBP-7 Merseyrail ticket from Ormskirk to Liverpool Central Station, but when I arrived in Liverpool, staff would not accept it as valid. An officer issued me with a GBP-20 penalty notice, though at the same time he told a lady who said she had forgotten her ticket that she could buy another. When I contacted Trainline and Merseyrail, the penalty notice was cancelled. However, Trainline then refunded the GBP-7 to me, so Merseyrail sent me a fresh penalty notice for GBP-27, and as I did not pay, it now wants GBP-125.

from Tony Hetherington in the Daily Mail - illustrated with a picture of Burscough Junction - read main article to find out why.
Logged

Coffee Shop Admin, Acting Chair of Melksham Rail User Group, Option 24/7 Melksham Rep
PhilWakely
Transport Scholar
Hero Member
******
Posts: 2007



View Profile
« Reply #1 on: January 03, 2021, 08:10:44 »

I would avoid Trainline altogether - not just for Merseyrail tickets!
Logged
TaplowGreen
Transport Scholar
Hero Member
******
Posts: 7743



View Profile
« Reply #2 on: January 03, 2021, 08:36:33 »

Sounds like a few heads from Merseyrail and Trainline need banging together, surely it can't be that difficult to resolve these anomolies?
Logged
grahame
Administrator
Hero Member
*****
Posts: 40687



View Profile WWW Email
« Reply #3 on: January 03, 2021, 09:29:55 »

Sounds like a few heads from Merseyrail and Trainline need banging together, surely it can't be that difficult to resolve these anomolies?

Indeed - especially as it seems was part of a (well?) known issue:
Quote
Not surprisingly, you offered to pay the normal GBP-7 fare, but not the penalty, which then escalated to GBP-125. I contacted Merseyrail, where staff made clear that this was not the first time they had met problems involving Trainline.
But written that way, it does give the impression of Merserrail staff pushing the blame to Trainline rather than taking a collective "we need to sort this for the customer" attitude.  The payment request for GBP-125 was from Merseyrail, after all ...
« Last Edit: January 03, 2021, 09:40:37 by grahame » Logged

Coffee Shop Admin, Acting Chair of Melksham Rail User Group, Option 24/7 Melksham Rep
TaplowGreen
Transport Scholar
Hero Member
******
Posts: 7743



View Profile
« Reply #4 on: January 03, 2021, 10:14:22 »

Sounds like a few heads from Merseyrail and Trainline need banging together, surely it can't be that difficult to resolve these anomolies?

Indeed - especially as it seems was part of a (well?) known issue:
Quote
Not surprisingly, you offered to pay the normal GBP-7 fare, but not the penalty, which then escalated to GBP-125. I contacted Merseyrail, where staff made clear that this was not the first time they had met problems involving Trainline.
But written that way, it does give the impression of Merserrail staff pushing the blame to Trainline rather than taking a collective "we need to sort this for the customer" attitude.  The payment request for GBP-125 was from Merseyrail, after all ...

Exactly - good edit.

More concerned with transferring blame than putting the customer first - exactly the type of culture which needs to change.
Logged
Ralph Ayres
Transport Scholar
Hero Member
******
Posts: 336


View Profile
« Reply #5 on: January 04, 2021, 13:25:09 »

Putting a slightly different slant on this, having had to deal with similar complaints myself:

Someone (SH) ordered a ticket using Trainline, for collection at a later time, and went to a Merseyrail station despite having been told that the ticket could not be collected from that station (their ticket machines are fairly basic being aimed at local journeys and aren't connected to the system that allows remote ordering and collection).  SH then travelled clutching a computer print-out giving details of the order (it probably said on it "NOT VALID FOR TRAVEL" and had details of how to collect the ticket) and was surprised to get a Penalty fare.

Trainline will happily sell the ticket.  They get the commission, and the buyer might want to collect the ticket elsewhere for some reason having been given a list of stations from which it could be picked up. SH certainly wasn't expected to buy another ticket specifically to travel to Burscough Junction purely to buy the ticket (that's the Daily Mail doing what the Daily Mail does best!), but might of course have been going there anyway for some other reason.

Merseyrail staff have no way of knowing if the person waving the printout has already collected the actual ticket and used it, would have little sympathy knowing that Trainline tells buyers where tickets can be collected and would have been bemused/suspicious about someone going online for a ticket they could have bought on the day at the same price from the ticket machine they claimed to want to collect the pre-ordered ticket from.

The subsequent confusion about the Penalty Fare being cancelled was unfortunate, but given SH's approach I wouldn't be surprised if any lack of clarity was on both sides or things weren't quite as described.
Logged
Surrey 455
Hero Member
*****
Posts: 1229


View Profile
« Reply #6 on: January 04, 2021, 20:51:29 »

If MerseyRail is part of the National Rail network, why are their machines allowed to be incompatible with the TOD that all/most other operators use?

It's not just Trainline. I've just tried to see if I would be offered a ticket for the same route on the GWR (Great Western Railway) app. It will sell it to me but like Trainline, doesn't offer Ormskirk as somewhere I could collect from. It also doesn't offer a mobile ticket either.
Logged
bobm
Administrator
Hero Member
*****
Posts: 9809



View Profile
« Reply #7 on: January 04, 2021, 21:04:15 »

I can only go back to one of my favourite posts on the forum


If you forgot you username AND password and has happened to me once - cant honestly remember what email you had at the time (think it was the trainline) - you just sign up again with a new user name

You registered with the trainline? Twice? What on earth possessed you do that?  Wink Grin
Logged
JayMac
Data Manager
Hero Member
******
Posts: 18894



View Profile
« Reply #8 on: January 04, 2021, 22:08:44 »

Yes. I know the message about the trainline comes too late for some, but my message has been consistent. Avoid.
Logged

"Build a man a fire and he'll be warm for the rest of the day. Set a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life."

- Sir Terry Pratchett.
grahame
Administrator
Hero Member
*****
Posts: 40687



View Profile WWW Email
« Reply #9 on: February 18, 2022, 20:50:31 »

And still MerseyRail are fining people who have bought tickets ...

From the Liverpool ECHO

Quote
A man who was fined by Merseyrail despite buying a ticket said the rail company should not be using third party ticket sellers.

Jake Lindop was travelling into Liverpool from Chester with his girlfriend on November 26 after buying tickets on the Trainline app.

But Mr Lindop was fined when he reached Liverpool Central for not having a valid ticket - despite showing them evidence on his phone that he had bought one.

Logged

Coffee Shop Admin, Acting Chair of Melksham Rail User Group, Option 24/7 Melksham Rep
Oxonhutch
Transport Scholar
Hero Member
******
Posts: 1243



View Profile
« Reply #10 on: February 18, 2022, 21:35:04 »

He didn't go to court, which is understandable, but I suspect that the first one that does might win their case and have the whole lot changed. We have lawyers on the group - what do they think?

I am thinking here of 'balance/fairness' in contract law, or the test of mens rea in criminal law. Plus, in the original example, before Trainline refunded his ticket, Merseyrail had been paid for the journey. It was merely an absence of unrefundable proof (in the shape of an issued ticket), that Merseyrail itself refused to enable with its out of date machines.
« Last Edit: February 18, 2022, 22:13:23 by Oxonhutch » Logged
Do you have something you would like to add to this thread, or would you like to raise a new question at the Coffee Shop? Please [register] (it is free) if you have not done so before, or login (at the top of this page) if you already have an account - we would love to read what you have to say!

You can find out more about how this forum works [here] - that will link you to a copy of the forum agreement that you can read before you join, and tell you very much more about how we operate. We are an independent forum, provided and run by customers of Great Western Railway, for customers of Great Western Railway and we welcome railway professionals as members too, in either a personal or official capacity. Views expressed in posts are not necessarily the views of the operators of the forum.

As well as posting messages onto existing threads, and starting new subjects, members can communicate with each other through personal messages if they wish. And once members have made a certain number of posts, they will automatically be admitted to the "frequent posters club", where subjects not-for-public-domain are discussed; anything from the occasional rant to meetups we may be having ...

 
Pages: [1]
  Print  
 
Jump to:  

Powered by MySQL Powered by PHP Powered by SMF 1.1.2 | SMF © 2006-2007, Simple Machines LLC Valid XHTML 1.0! Valid CSS!
This forum is provided by customers of Great Western Railway (formerly First Great Western), and the views expressed are those of the individual posters concerned. Visit www.gwr.com for the official Great Western Railway website. Please contact the administrators of this site if you feel that the content provided by one of our posters contravenes our posting rules (email link to report). Forum hosted by Well House Consultants

Jump to top of pageJump to Forum Home Page