My other daughter (not the Aberdeen commuter) returned to Paris today (where she lives). I had persuaded her to go by train. Quel horreur! Just out of Cramlington, her Northern Rail train came to a complete stop. The overhead lines were down (yes I know; the Northern train doesn’t use the overhead wires, but the train in front of it did). She was stranded south of Cramlington for around an hour, missed her connection at Newcastle, and her Eurostar connection at St Pancras.
Full marks to the really helpful Conductor on the East Coast train who accepted our daughter’s “booked train only” ticket without quibble then allowed her to borrow his phone to contact Eurostar’s customer service line centre. Yes, my daughter does have her own phone, but it’s registered to a French network, so using it from England to phone an English 0845 number would soon double the price of the ticket! He also provided his phone number so that Eurostar could call him to verify the delay to East Coast services. That’s excellent customer service, re-assuring and helpful.
My daughter had booked an all important CIV ticket from Newcastle to Paris which means if her incoming train from Newcastle is late, Eurostar have to allow her to travel on the next train without extra charge. Trouble was, the particular East Coast train she had booked on had started from Newcastle and was not late – it was just she had missed it, stranded on a different train outside the station. So, less than full marks to Eurostar, who just gave an unhelpful “don’t know” over the phone, giving my daughter a stressful 3 hour journey to London, before blagging it with the Eurostar barrier staff at St Pancras.
To extend the inclusive “CIV” ticket to / from Cramlington would have cost an extra £100, so we had decided to book from Newcastle and just pay the extra £4.50 for the Cramlington – Newcastle section of the journey.
