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Another spring bank holiday (May 28) train travel question

Posted by (Huntington Beach CA) on

I posted before regarding getting from London to York on this bank holiday and have gotten some great comments. As those of you know, I booked a bus ticket to travel on this day since the train schedule wasn’t released 3 months before my travel date of May 28 as I expected it to be. Now finally, the schedule was released so I decided to just go ahead and book a train ticket since this ride will take 2 hours vs 5 hours on the bus. The issue I’m running into is when I try to book my ticket and click on the icon “I” with a circle around it for additional information a comment pops up that says “At present we cannot confirm this service will run etc etc”.

Why does it say that??? I clicked on different departure times and they all say that. To compare, I checked the schedule for a different non holiday departure date and when I clicked on “I” it doesn’t have that comment. Is it safe to book a ticket? How will I know when they decide the train will run? Why would they release the schedule, allow you to buy a ticket but not guarantee your trip? At this point, I’m willing to lose the $25 I paid for my bus ticket to get to York faster and book a train ticket but this is getting frustrating. Should I book a train ticket or not?

Posted by
5553 posts

It's likely to be because maintenance work is scheduled to take place on some part of the route. The whole journey would not be cancelled, typically a bus service is provided to convey passengers to a station beyond the maintenance work to continue their journey. It's annoying but not a catastrophe. I would go ahead and book the ticket.

Posted by
2600 posts

The wording applies to all bookings from 19 May and coincides with the new 2018 Summer Timetable.

It’s a caveat that occurs every year prior to the release of the Summer and Winter timetables in case last minute tweaks need to be made. Have no fear, it’s 99.99% certain the service you book will run as stated.

Plus, no engineering works are scheduled

http://www.nationalrail.co.uk/service_disruptions/currentAndFuture.aspx?TravelDate=28%2F05%2F2018&TOC=gr

You are good to go.

Posted by
759 posts

Claudette, what website or train line are you trying to book tickets on? I am following your posts here because we are also traveling on May 28 and have a lot of the same questions (so thank you for asking!). I booked tickets on Great Western Railway (they let me complete the purchase) for my trip to Bath, but there was also a message to check back two weeks before the date of travel for "updates".

Posted by
1162 posts

I booked it on Virgin Trains East Coast. I usually travel in April to early May so this is the first time I’ve run into bank holidays. Lesson learned for next time 🙄

Posted by
4684 posts

This is actually quite unusual and is causing a lot of controversy in Britain - National Rail haven't provided details of engineering works to the train companies as far in advance as they ought to due to delays in completing planned works. Some people are complaining that they have to buy expensive tickets to be sure of travelling because the advance fares haven't been released - many train companies are claiming that they will refund passengers in those circumstances but many passengers don't trust them.

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