North Yorkshire Moors Railway General Discussion

The same. The now universal delay repay schemes are obligatory for TOC's on the national network but the NYMR is just an Open Access operator between Grosmont and Whitby. Those TOC schemes probably have their origins in the 2015 Act but as suggested heritage operators can opt for a lower threshold.

 

Does rather depend on what service the organisation is offering though. The T&Cs for the SVR seem quite clear on this point, whereas those for the NYMR seem a bit more contradictory to me.

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So do NR pay the NYMR if their is an infrastructure issue between Grosmont and Whitby, or Northern if their late running causes delays.
And as I have said before not all TOC delay repays are equal by any means. Grand Central for example as an OAO is 50% 60-120 minutes, 75% 121-180 minutes and not reaching a full refund until over 180 minutes. Way adrift from those TOC's that start at 15 minutes.

 

Yes but surely the point is that if the organisation issues a timetable it’s reasonable for a consumer to assume that something bearing a resemblance to that will operate. Otherwise the railway might more accurately state that trains may run but we can’t indicate when or if they will operate at all. Once that expectation has been created any significant departure from it is potentially supply of a service substantially different from that the consumer reasonably expects. At that point the 2015 Act bites.

 

The expectation of a customer of a heritage attraction is quite different. You’ve made an unnecessary rod for your own back / confused what the NYMR is there for. This is only worthy of debate because of a potential to set an unhelpful precedent for others. If regular recourse to this mechanism is required something much bigger is wrong anyway, and that’s how I feel about this whole sub thread, the real point is what this piece of thinking says about the Moors line as a whole.

 

But it would appear that it’s the NYMR itself that is creating the expectation.
If we follow your rational through, then passengers should be able to claim a refund if loco X doesn’t appear on their train or fails during the journey, because by advertising a loco roster for the train, you have created “an expectation” for passengers.
The SVR have it right and the NYMR are creating sticks to beat itself with.

 

Possibly although the NYMR conditions exclude that. Ultimately it comes down to interpretation of the legislation. Where a particular locomotive is advertised as the attraction, and especially if a premium fare is charged for it, it's arguable that such an exclusion would be deemed unreasonable.
Each heritage railway is able to interpret the law and form it's own judgement. They may opt for compliance or decide to ignore it and accept the possible consequences. The only precedent the NYMR is setting is one of complying with the same statutory provisons that apply to all other similar service providers whether that's for a timetabled train service or a heritage experience.

 

But your own Ts&Cs are contradictory. On the one hand you explicitly say the service you are offering is a heritage experience, not a timetabled travel service - and then in the next paragraph, you set out levels of compensation that are explicitly tied to your delivery of a timetable!

It just feels like another of those NYMR things, where applying one interpretation of the law to its conclusion has led you into a bizarre rabbit hole. The same way that the "volunteer has no rights" argument is inexorably leading you to a position where any role needed for operational delivery has to be delivered by paid staff, at ruinous impact on the budget.

Tom

 

Are you being forced down the "delay repay" router as part of being an OAO? If so would those conditions only need to apply to the Whitby services?
Interestingly I looked at National Express, who of course run services to a published timetable, & whose T & C's make no mention of any recompense or refund unless they actually cancel the service.

 

Because whatever is said about a being primarily a heritage experience publishing a timetable may raise expectations that the trains will run in accordance with something reasonably comparable to it. Weasel words may well not work.
Other posts on here have commented on delays and the reaction of passengers. Of course the possibility of compensation and refunds can be avoided if timekeeping is reasonable but heritage railways don’t operate in a bubble. The consequences of delay in terms of connecting train, bus services etc are obvious. Passengers expect that if things go badly wrong the railway will act responsibly.
The suggestion that the absence of any right to volunteer and their exclusion from the Equality Act encourages reliance on paid staff is bizarre. If anything it has the opposite effect!
The compensation/refund provisions are not a consequence of Open Access operations. They simply reflect consumer rights enshrined in the 2015 Act whic h by the way expressely excludes bus and coach services which is why National Express do not have to comply.

 

There is only one person leading this approach. As others have suggested, thee is a concern that this will also be seen as the norm by the HRA and be effectively forced on other railways. When I was working for a British Coal we were told in no uncertain terms that you didn’t interpret legislation that was subjective as it could then be seen as a precedent by the inspectorate, generally referred to as back door legislation. There’s no inspectorate involved here but the principle is the same.

 

The HRA is not in a position to force any of its members in the way suggested. Objection to the possibility of compensation or refunds is being directed at the NYMR, and now possibly the HRA , but the real gripe must surely be with the legislation itself? That's what can force service providers to compensate or refund for serious delays or other failures to deliver services reasonably in line with consumer expectations.

 

It appears one person’s interpretation of anything and everything is driving the loss making NYMR into financial ruin and oblivion .

 

The HRA cannot force anyone to do anything, but by a member taking a position and establishing it as a norm, that can then become an obligation others must meet.

The issue is not whether or not NYMR have enshrined payments for late running in their T&Cs*, but the way that this has been done ahead of any legal pressure and in isolation of other similar organisations. It has then (and I've still not had a chance to delve) seemingly also been done in a way that confuses.

* - I am a supporter of Delay Repay on the "big railway", and my professional experience shows me that liquidated damage/service credit type of arrangements can be very useful as a risk mitigation where they are fully understood and likewise the associated risks. In the content of the 2015 Act, I think @Lineisclear has a reasonable interpretation, but that the perspective has been insufficiently socialised and tested before implementation. When serving and former GMs elsewhere comment very differently on the same legislation, given relevant experience, I don't regard the interpretation as anywhere near settled.

 

Maybe it will have to wait for one of the "No compensation, No refunds" contingent to have their stance tested? Your assessement of the benefits of risk mitigation is spot on.

 

It may need to have that test applied - there is a railtour thread where my views on that point are clearly expressed. However, in the absence of binding case law (or even persuasive evidence from the lower courts), my view remains that NYMR has jumped early, and in insufficiently collaborative a manner.

 

A view that suggests, as per the earlier post, that the decision has been taken "ahead of any legal pressure". An Act of Parliament specifically requiring service providers to pay compensation in circumstances such as those in the NYMR T &C's surely qualifies as legal pressure?

 

Only if that is what the legislation actually requires. I'm not sure it is clear, which is why I stated that this is something that requires specialist advice on what the service being provided actually is.

Whenever I am speaking to a client I always want to know firstly what they want to achieve, and then my job is to work out how they can do that legally. The more I read of this thread, the more I wonder what the NYMR actually wants to do. Is it just survive? What is the vision?

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It's tempting to personalise things but a decision to offer compensation or refunds in limited circumstances requires the support of the organisation's leadership not any one individual. I very much doubt whether the NYMR's decision will influence the judgement of those responsible for monitoring other heritage railways compliance and what sanctions, if any, should be applied where they've chosen not to. It should be a straight question of "Does the Act oblige service providers to pay compensation and make refunds in some circumstances.? ....... Yes or No ? If it's Yes then the judgement is whether it's better to be forced to comply following a finding that consumers have been denied their statutory rights or to pre -empt such intervention?