What happens if you miss the train?

Question

If you have connecting trains, say three small journeys, to make a full trip. If one is delayed, but you're booked onto another one, what happens if you miss it because of that? Thanks. I have a lot of travelling and some tight connections.

Answer 1

again, as with other responses, the answer DEPENDS.

if you miss the trains of your own accord, ie running late to 1st station, lollygagging at stores or transfer points, etc, you generally just have to catch the next service or else you find some alternate way to get there.

now, it sounds like your specific question is dealing with transfers WHILE you are delayed on board a train in your itinerary.

so, this depends.  officially/legally, carriers generally are NOT liable for late services, missed connections, etc, especially due to weather, acts of God, etc etc etc.  all of these terms are spelled out on your ticket, the "contract for carriage".   so, you got to read that first.  some government laws may also apply, but these vary by jurisdiction, and i have no idea if you are in usa, europe, asia, etc, so either update your question with what country and carrier name that this involves, or you will not get the right answer.

NOW, all that being said, each carrier may have corporate policies to try to accommodate you in some way, especially the good customer service ones.

sometimes, the connecting train may be held, especially if it is just a short delay, or if there are lots of others besides you making the transfer.  these are decided on a case by case basis, generally we consider holding a train on a basis of "1 minute per passenger" or some simlar standard...so ie, a train with only 1 connecting passenger may be held for up to 5 mins, and if you are an hour late, youll miss it.  but if a train has 100 connecting passengers, then the train will be held for up to 100 minutes or thereabouts.  this is all kind of flexible, but there is no point in letting a train go out with 100 empty seats if an acceptable hold time and delayed departure will ensure that the customers make the connection.

in some cases, carriers WILL arrange for alternate transportation, such as on their own other trains, or via another route (example, if you miss your chicago-washington dc direct train that you booked, we may reacom you onto the later chicago-new york transfer trains to washington itinerary, and we will take care of getting you on the train with no extra costs), or may charter a motorcoach from someone (the carriers themselves usually dont own any spare buses, they charter them from companies who own them), or YES, even may send you on alternate carriers such as Greyhound or Trailways, if you want and if it will get you there.

connections to/from other carriers, however, will never be guaranteed anyway, so if you are scheduled to transfer from 1 train company to another, well, you probably will miss the train and just take the next one.

i used to work with amtrak and via rail as a ticket clerk, and we did all kinds of different things, depending on the situation at hand.  Wolf has it partially right about alternate transportation frequently being offered, and yes, it frequentloy is a motorcoach (BUT we dont own them, we charter them), but we actually can AND do buy tickets on greyhound trailways and even on airlines to get people where they are going sometimes.  and ive paid for many a taxi out of my ticket sales drawer too.

so, in general, it can be anything.  but talk to the conductor on the train if the delay is occurring, they can be in contact then with the dispatcher, who then is letting operations dept know, and you can be sure that ticket clerks are already monitoring the situation too and wokring on plans even while you are on a delayed train. we try to get ideas worked out in advance, OR MOST LIKELY, we have already done it before in the past and just re-use reaccommodation ideas, to try to be ready for these things.

Answer 2

If you miss the connecting one railways is not responsible for that.

FYI you can't travel with that ticket in any other train (personal experience). the only thing good about it is you need to contact the station master at that station and he will issue you some slip stating that you have not traveled on this ticket then alongwith that receipt you need to send your ticket to chief supervisor claims to you nearest railway zone preferably near to your city then they will issue you a DD and it will take some 4-5 months (personal experience)

Answer 3

This answer really depends on which kind of train you're on, and the particular rules for each.

For instance if they are city subway lines, there's a train every 3 minutes, whatever!

However if these are trains that only depart 1-2x a day, then yes, that's an important consideration, and you should check with the carrier.

For the rest of this response I'll describe Amtrak, the American intercity railroad.

Amtrak guarantees connections between their trains and buses.   Most of the time when I've been late, they've held the connecting train for us.  Or they'll arrange alternative transit, or put you in a hotel and guarantee a space on the next train.  

By "alternative transit" I've been put on chartered buses (Amtrak has their own fleet, they don't buy you a greyhound ticket!), or even a taxicab (75 miles).  If there's a commuter train (say, Metra or NJTransit) they'll put you on that.  If things are really foobar, they are willing to put people on airplanes, but they never require that, because "afraid/fed up with flying" is a major part of their ridership.  More people than ever feel that way as airlines go downhill.  Amtrak can run very, very late - but my worst travel delay ever was on JetBlue.

If you are changing carriers - say, Amtrak to Toronto and VIA to Edmonton - then you need to check with the carriers. That can go bad.

Answer 4

Take the next train.

The trains "reservation" is not like air plane seats.  They have plenty of seats on the next train.

Good Luck...

Answer 5

Nothing happens; you'll have to catch the next one. Nothing else you can do about it.

***

You won't have to pay again, but if you miss the train you need, you may have to stand on your next train, depending how busy it is, but you may get a seat- just don't think you'll be getting a reserved one if you need to catch the next train.