Dominic Lund-Conlon doesn’t like my previous blog about how he told all Train Operating Companies (TOCs) to cancel and refuse all disabled peoples’ assistance bookings during Hurricane Eunice. He has got the lawyers that Private Eye colloquially call “Carter Fuck“ to send me this legal letter purportedly alleging I defamed him.

His letter seems to boil down to these points.

1. Rail Delivery Group (RDG)’s “Customer Information Group (“CIG”)” made the decision to cancel and refuse assistance bookings, not our Dom.
2. Dom “suggested emailing the ORR (Office of Rail and Road) “to set out the situation”.” “That course of action was approved.” “There was no suggestion that Dom would “ask” the ORR what ought to be done”
3. My allegations unfairly undermine his excellent record in fighting for disableds.
4. The ORR wrote to me to say that all was A-OK regarding the cancellations, but I published my blog post anyway.
5. He is unhappy and thus he and/or his employers spent a lot of rail passengers’ / tax-payers money to get lawyers to have a moan at me (and not to actually threaten or ask me to do anything.)

I’m not going to bore you all by responding point-by-point, but I shall tackle these main issues head-on.

1. RDG’s “Customer Information Group (CIG)” decided to cancel and refuse bookings, not Dom

Dom’s lawyers helpfully explained the hierarchy at RDG.

“The Customer Board sits above the Customer Information Strategy Group (“CISG”), which itself heads two sub-groups: the Customer Information Group (“CIG”), which deals with issues related to customer information, and the Accessibility & Inclusion Group (“A&IG”), which deals with issues regarding compliance with licence-linked accessibility requirements (including the provision of pre-booked assistance to passengers)“. (my emphasis)

A pretty clear split of responsibilities: Customer Info = CIG. Accessibility, including passenger assistance = Accessibility & Inclusion Group (AIG). Two separate groups with separate responsibilities.

According to Dom, the CIG made the decision to cancel and refuse all assistance bookings. Not the AIG. The CIG made the decision as part of much wider decisions at a (seemingly informal, unrecorded and unminuted) phone call meeting. Accountable it is not.

I’m prepared to believe that it is possible that this unaccountable group (whose existence, mandate, responsibilities and processes are not published nor transparent, but which as we have found specifically does NOT include responsibility for passenger assistance) somehow made the momentous decision to (tell Dom to) instruct all train operating companies (TOCs) to cancel and refuse all assistance bookings during Storm Eunice, even though trains were still running. Dom wasn’t there; neither, apparently, were any of the accessibility and inclusion managers (AIMs) at any of the TOCs or Network Rail. Interestingly, neither was anybody from Transport for Wales – “There was no meeting with RDG at which TfW Rail was in attendance where this decision was made” -so who was there to decide to cancel all assistance bookings across the industry? what was their remit? and what process were they following?

RDG then instructed Dominic to disseminate the CIG’s decision to all TOCs’ accessibility managers. When he did so, he didn’t say “all TOCs have agreed this in a CIG meeting“, he simply sent out orders (seemingly on his / RDG’s non-existent authority) and assumed that TOCs would follow them. He made no indication as to what decision he was implementing, or who made it.

2. Dom “suggested emailing the ORR “to set out the situation”.” “That course of action was approved.” “There was no suggestion that Dom would “ask” the ORR what ought to be done”

Let’s get the actual messages, should we? In time order, emphasis added:

• GTR: “we would appreciate industry clarity whether we should/could cancel booked travel altogether over this period as to take a booking for a journey that we know is highly likely to be disrupted may set an unrealistic expectation. Conversely, refusing a booking, as we know goes against everything we would normally do, so this is uncharted territory. Appreciate urgent guidance on this“
• Dom: “If “Do Not Travel” is in place, then you can’t offer journeys that you are actively telling all customers not to make. I will email the ORR to set out the situation if the group would like me to?“
• GTR: “Getting ORR confirmation asap would be much appreciated.“
• LNER: “Yes please – obviously we kind of need a response in hours so hopefully they’ll understand the urgency.“

It’s pretty clear to me that the two TOCs who responded to our Dom’s kind offer were asking for a confirmatory “OK” before going ahead. They didn’t approve Dom telling the ORR what the decision was; they wanted Dom to seek confirmation from the ORR that the proposed course of action was OK.

Dom didn’t seek any such thing. He didn’t say: “I’ve told TOC AIMs to cancel and refuse all assistance, they’ve asked me to seek ORR confirmation, can you oblige?“. He didn’t even say “the CIG has decided TOCs should cancel and refuse all bookings.” He simply told them: “all train operators are undertaking proactive contact with customers who are booked to travel on Friday to rearrange their planned journeys“, and “members will be not accepting any new booking requests from customers for Friday.”

That quite simply wasn’t true, as we have established. I.e. Dom lied to the regulator, claiming that the industry was cancelling and refusing all assistance, whereas in fact, it seems only one TOC (out of 20) was actually doing so.

I stand by what I said in my original post: Dom “does NOT have the power to instruct RDG’s members to do anything, nor the right to lie to the ORR.”

3. My allegations unfairly paint him in a negative light and undermine his excellent record in fighting for disableds.

That is not my opinion of him, nor is it the opinion of a significant number of other disabled people.

Some disabled people think Dom is a misogynist and a bully. I think he is a two-faced yes-man, touting his ableist industry and employer’s self-congratulatory back-slapping whilst failing to deliver disabled passenger’s rights (e.g. the supposedly-all-singing-all-dancing Passenger Assist app). In my opinion, he also engages in gaslighting and undermining other disabled passengers’ voices. I think that far from my blog post “striking at the heart of our client’s professional reputation”, it actually endorses much of the disabled community’s view of him, more like.

In any case, what I posted is fundamentally true. OK; the actual decision was made by an unaccountable RDG-hosted group acting outside of its remit; however he didn’t tell any AIMs how the decision was made, he simply ordered them to cancel and refuse bookings then lied to the ORR that they were already doing it. He didn’t ask for the ORR’s approval (i.e. he defied the clear wishes of those TOCs he represents.) So in my opinion he has undermined himself, in his usual inimical high-handed bullying style.

4. The ORR wrote to me to say that all was A-OK regarding the cancellations, but I published my blog post anyway.

The ORR’s letter was based upon Dom’s lie.

ORR: “On the 17th February the rail industry took the decision to proactively contact all passengers that had booked assistance on journeys due to take place on 18th and 19th February, in order to cancel and (where possible) rearrange these bookings. They also decided to stop taking any further bookings for assistance for this period. We were informed of this decision at noon on the 17th.”

“The rail industry” did no such thing. As we have established, the RDG’s Customer Information Group, which had no responsibility for accessibilty, unilaterally made this decision. Nearly all Train Operating Companies then ignored the order.

It is apparent that the ORR had taken Dom’s inaccurate claim at face value (as they should be able to!) and had written their response to me accordingly. Their conclusion was based on Dom’s inaccurate and untrue statement. It was reasonable for me to continue to publish my blog.

The ORR emailed me again a week later:

“Thank you for your emails, and the further information that you’ve provided. We have also read your blog on this issue …. We’ll be involved in follow up discussions with industry to understand what can be learnt from this event. We’ll be looking at the decisions made, who made them, and who provided what information. We will work with industry to ensure that any relevant learning is incorporated where appropriate into policy and training.”

I stand by my blog and would argue that the ORR’s response on the issue was irrelevant as they were working on wholly inaccurate information (provided by our Dom.)

5. He is unhappy and thus he and his employers spent a lot of rail passengers’ / tax-payers money to get lawyers to have a moan at me (and not to actually threaten or ask anything.)

It really isn’t a good look. It would have been a much better look for our Dom and the RDG to apologise and explain what they’ve learnt from the experience. His OTT tantrum has simply brought more attention to him and his employer for failing disabled passengers during the storm and has affirmed my opinion (shared by many) that both he and RDG should JUST GO, as the self-important, bullying, non-delivering, ableist apologists and liabilities to disabled people they are.

(note to Dom: I know you’re reading – you could do with reading about the Streisand Effect.)

All train and station operating companies are required as part of their Accessible Travel Policies (i.e. as part of their operating license) to provide booked assistance to disabled travellers, and to accept bookings for said assistance to be provided.

This has been the case for at least 25 years to my recollection, probably longer. In all that time, there has never been any day on which any operator simply cancelled and refused to provide booked assistance, or any day for which any operator refused to carry out any bookings (except for e.g. Christmas Day, when there are no train services for any passengers, disabled or otherwise.)

That is, until 18th February 2022. On 17th February, Govia Thameslink Railways (GTR) decided to cancel all assistance bookings made for the 18th, and to refuse all new assistance bookings for services run that day, due to the “Do Not Travel” advisory (Storm Eunice).

(Note that word “advisory”. The industry was still running trains, selling tickets for those trains, and indeed people travelled on those trains, despite being advised not to travel. Despite this, GTR cancelled and refused all bookings for assistance that disabled people need in order to travel.)

My assistance booking request for a journey for that day was cancelled by GTR.

How was this decision made to cancel and refuse all bookings, one wonders?

Faz Hakim, GTR’s Head of Public Affairs, (whilst tweet-gaslighting a disabled passenger) claimed the “advice and guidance on providing assistance was agreed with other Train companies, the Rail Delivery Group and the Office of Rail and Road“. This is demonstrably untrue.

In reality, the decision wasn’t made at any meeting, with the involvement of any train or station operating companies, nor with the approval of the Office of Rail and Road (ORR). The decision was made solely by Rail Delivery Group, through its accessibility and inclusion manager Dominic Lund-Conlon (who tweets as @DaddyDoink.)

The lack of transparency and accountability in this decision is breathtakingly revealed in Northern’s Freedom of Information release. The decision was communicated in an email chain on a rail industry “accessibility” email group, including train operator accessibility leads and Rail Delivery Group. You can read the whole email chain. or here are the highlights.

On Thursday 17th lunctime, our Dom instructed operators to be prepared to contact customers to rearrange journeys.

GTR’s Customer Relations Operations Manager commendably asked legitimate and measured questions:

Given the strength of the ‘Do not travel’ message, we would appreciate industry clarity whether we should/could cancel booked travel altogether over this period as to take a booking for a journey that we know is highly likely to be disrupted may set an unrealistic expectation.
Conversely, refusing a booking, as we know goes against everything we would normally do, so this is uncharted territory.
Appreciate urgent guidance on this so the advice we provide to our booked customers is consistent with industry; ie whether we should refuse a booking if there is a general ‘Do not travel’ message in place?

To which our Dom responded at 12:37, saying simply,

If “Do Not Travel” is in place, then you can’t offer journeys that you are actively telling all customers not to make.
I will email the ORR to set out the situation if the group would like me to?

GTR required confirmation:

Getting ORR confirmation asap would be much appreciated.

as did LNER:

Yes please
– obviously we kind of need a response in hours so hopefully they’ll understand the urgency.

However, instead of asking the ORR if it was OK to cancel and refuse bookings, Dominic simply informed them what he incorrectly claimed operators were already doing. Dominic emailed the following lie to the ORR:

I would like to update you on the current work underway in relation to passenger assist bookings for Friday 18 February and the “Do Not Travel” notice issued today.
At present, all train operators are undertaking proactive contact with customers who are booked to travel on Friday to rearrange their planned journeys. Alongside this, members will be not accepting any new booking requests from customers for Friday

The ORR thanked our Dom for his update.

That was the extent of the decision-making process for the (ostensible) decision to cancel and refuse the entire nation’s assistance bookings for a 24-hour period. It simply consisted of Rail Delivery Group (likely Dominic alone!) making the decision, Dominic himself instructing operators to cancel and refuse bookings, and Dominic lying to the ORR that all operators were already doing so.

Happily, most operators did not cancel or refuse bookings for assistance, despite Dom instructing them to do so and despite his claim to the ORR that all operators were.

• Network Rail said: “all of our managed stations who deliver passenger assistance continued to deliver both booked and unbooked passenger assistance during Storm Eunice. We did not cancel or refuse any assistance bookings or requests and all normal processes were followed.“
• Northern: “On 17th February 2022 Northern cancelled some services in anticipation of the disruption Storm Eunice would cause. Northern then attempted to make contact with customers who had booked passenger assistance on the services that were cancelled and helped them make alterative arrangements. Northern did not cancel the bookings of services scheduled to run and provided alternative transportation when there was further disruption on the day.
  Northern did not refuse to take new bookings. Northern advised customers of the Do Not Travel advisory, but if a service was scheduled to run Northern accepted the booking for passenger assistance if that was what the customer wanted to do.“
• SouthEastern: got staff to contact customers with booked assistance to warn of likely disruption and offer to rearrange their journey. “Of the people we spoke to, three confirmed they would still need to travel. We maintained these bookings but on the advice not to travel because we were expecting disruption to services and some lines of route may have to close. As per our message to all customers, this included that alternative transport could not be provided should a line have to close.” – though “we didn’t take new pre-bookings for Assisted Travel journeys on 18 February.“
• LNER: “We followed a BAU (Business As Usual) process of contacting all customers with booked assistance as a welfare check and to offer to re-arrange. Passenger assistance bookings were cancelled where a customer informed us that they were no longer travelling and we made amendments where necessary to coordinate with services that were able to run. We would have accepted any further assistance bookings”. On Lund-Conlon’s email to the ORR saying that TOCs were cancelling and refusing assistance bookings: “Please note, LNER did not endorse this response, and neither is it the course of action that LNER took“.
• Scotrail: “ScotRail did not follow the advice given by RDG and continued operating services as normal. The decision was taken based on the information available that suggested that Storm Eunice was unlikely to affect much of Scotland. Passenger Assistance was provided as normal for ScotRail passenger.”
• GWR informed me that they did not cancel or refuse any assistance bookings. They contacted customers with booked assistance to advise of the potential issues, but maintained the booking where this was the customer’s preference.
• Transport for Wales: cancelled all their trains during Storm Eunice, so consequently cancelled relevant assistance (as nobody could travel on their services, disabled or not.)

Rail Delivery Group‘s legal name is the “Association of Train Operating Companies“. They are not a public body, so they aren’t subject to the ORR (the regulator), to the Public Sector Equality Duty or to transparency such as the Freedom of Information Act. Their role is nebulous and poorly-defined; as the Williams Rail Review noted. But it is clear that they are NOT there to make unilateral decisions and inflict them on their own members (the train operating companies and Network Rail.)

As for Dominic Lund-Conlon: that he (thinks he) has the power to unilaterally decide to cancel and refuse all assistance bookings across the nation for 24 hours is astounding, and totally outside his somewhat lowly role. He does NOT have the power to instruct RDG’s members to do anything, nor the right to lie to the ORR about what RDG’s members are actually doing. (Who does he think he is; the God of rail access?)

It is widely thought that RDG, and particularly Dominic Lund-Conlon, are active impediments to access for disabled people to rail transport. Neither represent disabled passengers, or even their operating company members; and it is time that both went.

And my train? It ran, reasonably to time and with no problems. Without me on it, of course.

Update Sunday 20th March 2022:

I have written to the Transport Select Committee, and to Wendy Morton (Rail Minister and Disability Champion) about this.

We can’t allow it to go unchallenged. Or repeated.

Update Monday 21 March 2022

I have updated this article with responses from LNER and GWR.

Update Friday 22nd April 2022

I have updated this article with responses from Scotrail and TfW.