ScotRail Compensation

Mearns

My wife and two friends recently used ScotRail to go on a day return trip from Aberdeen to a meeting in Edinburgh. The train was 20 minutes late approaching Haymarket - one stop just 5 minutes short of the destination of Edinburgh Waverley station. With less than 10 minutes notice it was announced that the train would terminate at Haymarket.

Note that to receive compensation for delayed arrival the passenger must have suffered at least a 30 minute delay.

My wife and friends spent £9 on a taxi to take them to Waverley station as their meeting was held just a couple of hundred yards away from the station and they would have been late if they had not done so.

A day later I phoned ScotRail and asked that they refund the taxi fare as this had been incurred necessarily as a result of the train terminating at Haymarket. I was told they were unable to refund taxi fares.

The excellent customer services guy asked me to hold whilst he investigated what had happened on the day. He came back after a few minutes and said that in their terminology my wife and friends had been subject to what ScotRail call an 'abandoned journey'. A few days later my wife and friends received a full refund of the Aberdeen to Edinburgh Waverley fare.......which was of course far in excess of the taxi fare refund which I had requested.

daveyjp

Have a look at this and make sure they have received what they are entitled to:

https://www.scotrail.co.uk/plan-your-journey/our-delay-repay-guarantee

The train company should have informed them of the refund rights as soon as the train was cancelled.