The East Coast Rail Service........

[bolo 2]

..........is to be temporarily nationalised after Virgin and Scotrail give up the franchise. Now I don’t travel by rail very often but recently my wife organised a weekend in York with a combined return cost of £144.00 travelling by Virgin Rail. We arrived an hour and a quarter late and were advised by the guard and by other passengers to claim a refund. On the return journey, the train arrived at Edinburgh 3 minutes late, we missed our connection and ended up an hour and a half after we were supposed to. Again we were told by the guard to claim a refund. Consequently, we submitted claims for both journeys and will now receive a total refund from Virgin. And that refund almost covered the cost of the Travelodge!

Given that all passengers on these 2 journeys were advised to claim similar refunds, I am left wondering just how often this happens and if so, was it one of the main reasons for the decisions to relinquish the franchises?

 

[JohnD]

It's not so much the refunds as the incompetence of the companies. Can't run a railway.

Most of our railway brands are government owned, which is fine with our Tory government. Unfortunately the governments that own them are foreign governments, so the profits flow out. The UK taxpayer subsidises these foreign-owned railways, and pays more than it did when the railways were nationally owned.

Richard Branson, and most of his companies, are based in the Virgin Islands to avoid paying UK tax.

Is it nice to know that the profits flow out to foreign investors, and the UK taxpayer bails them out whenever needed?