Dr Mark W Beech

48 Goscote Road
Heath End
Pelsall
WS3 4LE

Customer Relations Manager

CrossCountry
Cannon House
18 The Priory Queensway
Birmingham
B4 6BS
7th July 2010

Dear Sirs,
I feel obliged to write to you today, to relay my
experience of travelling upon one of your trains yesterday. I was
travelling on the 1030 departure from Birmingham New Street to
Cardiff Central, as part of a journey from Walsall to Abercynon.
During this journey the conductor on the train Dean decided to
withdraw my 16-25 railcard, in the process charging me £45 for a
replacement train ticket from Walsall to Abercynon.

During the journey Dean came to check my tickets, I shown him my

train ticket, my seat reservation and my 16-25 railcard. As my
railcard was faded he took it out of the wallet to take a better
look at it, at this point he acknowledged that it was valid until
the 1st of September but told me that I should get it replaced once I
got in to Cardiff. He then started asking me if I had brought
cheaper advance tickets, or if I had brought them at the station on
the day, to which I replied that I had brought them online, to which
he said he was unhappy with that, he said he would not have a
problem if I had brought my tickets on the day, but because I had
brought them in advance he was unhappy. At this point he started
damaging my railcard, running it through his ticket machine,
ripping, scratching and bending the card. He returned the card to me
and continued down towards the front of the train.

Later he returned and asked to see my railcard again, and when I

handed it to him he said that it was not valid as it was now
according to him blank, he again said he was unhappy that I was
travelling on an advance ticket and said he would sort it out. He
then left walking towards the back of the train.

He returned, informed me that he was withdrawing my railcard and

produced an Unpaid Fare Notice that he filled out from Walsall to
Abercynon. He incorrectly assumed that I was married, a point I
asked him to change. While he was filling in the address he
questioned several times the street name and county, requesting the
spelling from me repeatedly. Once he completed the form, after going
away to check the correct fare from Walsall to Abercynon, I signed
it, only after asking him to make the above correction. It was only
once I had returned home that I realised he had not included an
Authorisation Number so I was unable to file an appeal on the IRCAS
website.

I asked him if he could provide a written explanation of why he had

withdrawn my railcard, this he did after a fashion in a statement
that contained several inaccuracies. The main reason given in this
statement was the fact the railcard was blank ignoring the fact that
he had read the details of it earlier on the journey.

As he was leaving he informed me that the ticket he had given me was

only valid on Crosscountry trains and that I would have to buy
another ticket at Cardiff in order to continue my journey to
Abercynon.

Once off the train I had to purchase a new railcard in order to make
my return journey that night, and purchased another ticket from
Cardiff to my destination meaning that ultimately I ended-up paying
for this journey three times in addition to being forced to renew my
railcard almost two months before my last one would have expired.

I thank you for taking the time to read all of this, as you can
imagine I was left very upset and distressed by all of this, but I
feel it does pose several questions that I would like to see
addressed:
1. Why would a railcard that was acceptable at one point suddenly
become unacceptable barely 20 minutes later?
2. Why was I told that my railcard would still have been
acceptable had I paid the walk-up fare, but was not only
because I was travelling on a cheaper advance ticket?
3. Why the conductor was so critical of my use of Welsh place
names, with an attitude that I found to be almost racist?
4. Why was I charged the price of a ticket to Abercynon, when it
was only valid for travel as far as Cardiff?
5. Why was I not provided with the information I required in
order to log an appeal with IRCAS?

I look forward to your prompt response to these questions.

Yours,

Dr Mark W Beech