Northern Rail Delay Repay: How to claim compensation for late trains

Northern Rail Delay Repay is simple to understand and easy to claim. If you travel on any Northern Rail service train that arrives 15 or more minutes late, you can submit an application for a full or partial refund.

Under Northern Rail’s Passenger Charter and National Rail Conditions of Travel, passengers who are delayed by 15 minutes or more will likely be entitled to money back, though the total amount of compensation due can vary based on the total length of your delay and the type and cost of your ticket.

Note: Northern will only provide compensation if it is responsible for your delay; if not, you might need to claim with a different train operator.

As well as the 15 minute figure, another key number to remember is 28 – this is the number of days after your journey that you have to submit your claim.

To claim Northern Rail Delay Repay claim, head to this page: Northern Delay Repay.

There, you’ll be prompted to fill in all the relevant information about your journey, including information about your tickets, your full name and address, images of all tickets and the length of delay you encountered.

When making a Northern Rail Delay Repay claim, you will also be asked to select your preferred method of compensation from the following list:

• BACs payment to a UK bank account
• A payment to UK Debit or Credit card
• A Natwest PayIt Payment
• Rail Travel Vouchers
• A Complimentary ticket (valid on Northern services only)
• A Cashable Voucher
• A donation to Northern’s chosen charity, the Samaritans.

If you prefer to submit your claim via post, you can collect a paper form from any Northern Rail station or download it here. Follow the instructions then post it, along with all tickets and supporting documents, to Freepost Northernrailway.

Northern Rail pledges to resolve all claims within 20 working days. Remember: Delay Repay claims are always processed by the trainline, not with Trip.com.

If you travel on a Northern service that arrives 15 or more minutes later than scheduled, you will likely be entitled to a Northern Rail refund up to 100%.

This table outlines the amount owed:

For Season Ticket holders, the equation is a little more complex. To ensure fair compensation is awarded, Northern Rail uses the proportionate cost of the price of your Season Ticket. Essentially, every journey is worth 1/10th of a Weekly ticket, 1/40th of a Monthly ticket and 1/464th of an Annual ticket; for Flexi Season Tickets, each journey is 1/8th.

For example, if you hold a Weekly Season Ticket and your journey is delayed by 30 minutes, you will get 50% of one-tenth of the cost of your Season Ticket (i.e. 5%).

Let’s say your Weekly Season Ticket costs £100 per week. Each journey is therefore worth £10, and a 30 minute delay would qualify for 50% compensation, giving you a Northern Rail Delay Repay total of £5.

Photo by Jon David Houghton

The greatest concern many passengers have with Northern Rail Delay Repay is whether the scheme actually delivers compensation to customers. Thankfully, the operator provides a full breakdown of the number of claims received and approved for recent periods, showing that, yes, Northern Rail does refund the vast majority of its Delay Repay claimants. You can find more stats here.

Although not every single Northern Relay Delay Repay claim is successful, these figures should reassure passengers that the operator does deliver on its commitment to compensate delayed travellers. With an average processing time well below the maximum of 20, Northern Rail compensation is fast and reliable.

If you think Northern has rejected your claim wrongly, you can appeal against the decision. When you receive an email confirming that your claim has been declined, Northern will provide a reason why this has happened. To query the outcome, email enquiries@northernrailway.co.uk or call Northern’s customer relations team on 0800 200 60 60.

Common reasons for an unsuccessful Northern Rail Delay Repay claim include:

• Not having a valid ticket for the journey you are claiming for
• Submitting your claim after more than 28 days
• Failing to provide sufficient proof of purchase
• Claiming for a journey that Northern could not identify as being delayed by 15 minutes or more
• Being delayed by a different operator.

For delayed, disrupted, amended or cancelled trains, it is possible to seek Northern Rail compensation in a variety of ways. Northern Rail Delay Repay only applies to train journeys that you completed but arrived behind schedule. This means that if you are forced to abandon your journey due to a cancellation or delay, you cannot claim Northern Delay Repay. In these instances, you might be eligible for a refund, depending on your ticket type, exact circumstances and conditions of sale. Where appropriate, you will need to claim this through the retailer from which you bought your ticket.

• Ensure all information included in your claim is accurate and easy to understand.
• Upload a high-resolution scan or photograph of your ticket(s) and passes, so that Northern can check your claim.
• Don’t forget to look if planned engineering works on your day of travel could be the reason for changes to your journey. If an amended timetable has been published in advance, you will probably not be eligible for Northern Rail compensation.
• Remember to upload the details of the journey you intended to take, not the journey you ended up taking!

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