Anyone who has read this blog before will know about the trouble I’ve had attempting to get a legitimate refund from Virgin Trains – or their website operator The Trainline.com. Well, I’m likely to have to travel to London and Southampton a number of times over the next few weeks, so I’ll need train tickets, which got me thinking … Remember – You can buy a train ticket from ANY rail operator for any UK journey.
So, I’ve started work on a list of those Train Operating Companies (TOC’s) that do and do not use The Trainline.com for their booking agent. I tried to find this information myself earlier today, but couldn’t, so I figured I’d go ahead and work it out for myself.
It doesn’t claim to be a particularly scholarly piece of research; I went to each operating company’s website and tried to buy a ticket, then searched the source of the page to see what system they use. To be honest, once you’ve seen a few, it’s pretty obvious.
Here begins my semi-definitive list of where to book a train ticket without having to go anywhere near The Trainline.com. I can’t guarantee that the others are any better, but they surely couldn’t be any worse …
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This has nothing to do with me at all, but it was brought to my attention this morning – there is a Miseryrail Facebook group:
Miseryrail Facebook group
I’m so sick of Mersey Rail – their treatment of the people who use the train service and the way that they con us into paying hard earned money for a rubbish service!!
There are only a few members so far, but I don’t know how long it has been going, or who runs it. It might be worth joining though to see how it progresses.
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This is what the Merseyrail website said last night, at 5 o’clock, some 30 minutes after chaos descended upon the Wirral line and it’s hapless commuters thanks to a broken down train somewhere in the vicinity of Hamilton Square.
The Merseyrail website this evening
Luckily, someone called and warned me, so I managed to avoid the worst of it, but there was no warning to commuters as they entered Hamilton Square, so my girlfriend wandered unwittingly into the middle of it. You’d think they would at least provide passengers with the info they need to make a decision, before diving underground.
So never, ever believe their website status ticker, because it’s bullshit (probably so the regulator doesn’t get to see).
As an aside, it would be interesting to know how many trains technically ran late last night (which count against Merseyrail’s performance figures) and how many they cancelled (which, somewhat strangely, don’t count). So late is poor performance, cancelled isn’t – go figure!
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I see on the new-look Merseyrail website that they’ve changed their policy on ticket refunds …
If you hold a daily ticket and you are delayed for more than half an hour we will refund the price of the ticket. If you hold a weekly or monthly Railpass ticket you will be entitled to a percentage of the cost. To make any claims on daily tickets, send in the details of the journey you could not make along with the original ticket to Customer Relations, Rail House, Lord Nelson Street, Liverpool, L1 1JF.
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