You have to love England

[Sir Tokyo Sexwale]

two rail passengers were fined a total of £114 ($176) for apparently “getting off [a] train two stops early”. Emma Clark and Davyd Winter-Bates had purchased discounted rail tickets for a return journey between Southampton and London. Heading home, though, they decided to leave the train at Eastleigh, two stops before Southampton. And that's where the fun started:

 

…when they handed over their tickets they were told they had breached railway rules and should have stayed on the train until their destination.

 

They were then fined TWICE the standard fare of £28.50 each - a whopping £57 each.

 

Now, the original draft of this blog post was a defence of Stagecoach, the company which runs South West Trains and which also owns the megatrain.com website through which the travellers booked their journey. I was ready to say that Miss Clark and Mr Winter-Bates should have read the terms and conditions of their purchase a bit more clearly. Stagecoach is not a charity, after all, and if it can make some money when travellers break pre-agreed rules, then that's fair enough.

 

Indeed a company statement offers just such a two-handed defence of the penalty:

 

It is made very clear in the terms and conditions of travel that leaving the train at an intermediate station is not permitted on these discounted tickets. As with any service offered by any company, it is important passengers comply with the terms and conditions.

 

It is also important to understand that the cost of a rail ticket is not solely based on distance travelled. It is based on the level of flexibility purchased by the customer and factors such as the popularity of the route, the time of travel during the day and when the ticket was booked in relation to the date of travel.

 

But having just re-enacted the Southampton-London booking, my sympathies have swung strongly across to the impoverished travellers. Yes you're told to tick your agreement to the company's terms and conditions, but these include more than 2,000 words of technical verbiage before you reach this line:

 

Bookings are only valid on the journey(s) and places stated.

 

And that's the only relevant reference I can. From this, it seems, travellers are meant to infer the perils of failing to travel through to their official journey's end. This is anything but a clear warning, and given the severity of the fine, I can only think that travellers should be told much more clearly, and much more obviously, what happens if they get off the train too soon.

 

Economonist Blog

[fyds]

This post is not viewable to guests.

You can sign in to your account at the login page here

If you do not have an account then you can register here

[John am Rhein]

This post is not viewable to guests.

You can sign in to your account at the login page here

If you do not have an account then you can register here

[ManxRed]

This post is not viewable to guests.

You can sign in to your account at the login page here

If you do not have an account then you can register here

[D.Boon]

This post is not viewable to guests.

You can sign in to your account at the login page here

If you do not have an account then you can register here

[Dmitch]

This post is not viewable to guests.

You can sign in to your account at the login page here

If you do not have an account then you can register here