A commuter who travels to Manchester from Stoke-on-Trent has hit out at an 'insane' £800 fare hike caused by a train cancellation.
Daniel Wilson regularly uses the 7.45am service, which Avanti West Coast has 'temporarily' axed from today (May 16), StokeonTrentLive reports. The train operator said the decision is linked to staff shortages.
Daniel uses the busy service to travel to Manchester from his Northwood home during the working week. The 39-year-old university technician has already spent almost £2,800 on an Avanti-only annual season ticket, which he has five months left on.
He must now fork out an extra £800 for a season ticket that would allow him access to other train service providers so that he could get to work. It means that from today, he will have to get either the 6.58am or 7.27am train to get to work on time. Both of these trains are slower than the 7.45am service.
Daniel said: "It would mean another 20 minutes journey time for me and it would cost me another £800 on top. There will be a 25 per cent increase in the fare. I was in disbelief, I thought it was a clerical error at first. The station staff have said this is absolutely insane.
"It’s one of the busiest trains of the day. It’s incredibly gutting because I now need to find an extra £800 a year to get to work. The cost of living is going up really high too. It’s an extortionate amount of money I’ll have to pay.
"They are blaming a lack of train crew, which is quite interesting as they ran this train and the later train at 8.25am all the way through the pandemic and coronavirus lockdowns. There’s something seriously wrong with Avanti.
"On a Monday, there’s probably 150 people on the train. But when it gets to Wednesday, you can easily get 400 people.
"People are flexible working so many don’t have a season ticket and are just buying daily tickets. There’s not as many people using the trains, so it’s probably not financially viable. But they could’ve run the first train in the morning and cancel one in the middle of the day to compensate."
Leave your thoughts in our comments below
Daniel has contacted Avanti to ask for compensation for the extra money he will need to spend for another season ticket. He added: "Those with Avanti-only season tickets are basically stuck because you’ve either got to get a later train and be late for work or you’ve got to find £800.
"The problem is if you’ve got your season ticket you would have to get a refund and then buy an any train season ticket, but you won’t get all your money back because there’s an administration fee. On a season ticket, you get the last two months on your ticket for free and they take that off straight away.
"I’ve got five months on my ticket left, but I’ll only get three months plus the admin fee off of it back. That’s not fair considering you've just changed the season ticket. The reason I bought the season ticket is because it operated on the hours I needed to get to work. It seems very unfair.
"It would be nice to have compensation for the time lost. It’s nice to have some reassurance that it is actually going to be reinstated.
"They have promised lots of things when they took over from Virgin trains and we are yet to see the impact of it. Compensation for those who are affected would be good."
Avanti West Coast says the service is planned to return in September. A spokesperson said: "The 07.45 Stoke-on-Trent to Manchester Piccadilly train has been withdrawn until September as a temporary measure due to staff shortages. The train is planned to return in September and our timetable is subject to regular review in collaboration with stakeholders from Government, Network Rail and industry partners."
