Britain’s broken railways turned me into a Delay Repay evangelist

Or, in my case this year, showing how leaving a suggested track on repeat overnight by accident can destroy my algorithm and misrepresent me (Always Crawl by Radiogram, allegedly my top song. You haven’t heard of it - no one has. I’m one of 12 monthly listeners). But the app I actually want a Wrapped from this year is something far less glamorous: National Rail.

Because if I had a ‘Railway Wrapped 2025,’ it would open with the depressing stat that my biggest passive income stream has not been savings, side hustles or premium bonds; it has been delay repay compensation.

I have made so many claims that I know the form by muscle memory. If too much time passes without me visiting the page, my iPhone helpfully recommends it to me. My camera roll is 40 per cent screenshots of departure boards, 40 per cent proof-of-delay emails, and 20 per cent photos of me sitting in the middle of nowhere, so people could look for me in the event I mysteriously disappear.

And I am not unique. Everyone I know has their own rail trauma anthology; the friend who had to get a £70 taxi home from a village so remote it looked like Narnia, the colleague who did a three-hour, multi-change, public transport Race Across The World style detour to travel a few miles from their house, that time a carriage drank the trolley dry while stuck at a red signal for a whole evening.

Train travel in Britain has become a national endurance sport. It is less ‘getting from A to B,’ more ‘hoping B still exists by the time you arrive.’

As a result, I have become a full-blown Delay Repay Evangelist. A crusader. A one-woman consumer rights outreach programme. If the train is late by even two minutes, my pulse heightens like a birdwatcher spotting a rare pelican. I am already mentally photographing the departure board.

And it is addictive. The moment a train ticks from 14 minutes late to that golden, legally significant 15, I am elated; other passengers cheer when trains leave on time, I’m willing a late one to go even later so I get my money back.

But here is the thing: I do not just claim for myself. No. I educate. I roam carriages like a rail-bound Martin Lewis, teaching reluctant commuters how to submit their first claim. I lean over seats whispering, “you are owed two pounds and 41 pence sir, get what is yours.”

I have helped so many first-timers through the process that I should earn commission. Or at least a badge. Because this is my philosophy: if we do not make it inconvenient for the train companies, they will never learn.

Every claim, even the tiny ones, is a message. Every £2.40 is a protest. Every 15-minute delay is an opportunity for justice/to create irritating administration for someone. And justice has been plentiful this year, hundreds of pounds back, which is good for me financially, but tells less positive stories in terms of missed birthday drinks, cancelled shows and disappointed family who you travel five hours to see for 45 minutes because late trains home are disappearing all over the country, removing your options to recoup your delayed time. You can leave five hours early to be safe and still end up thwarted due to:

• staff shortages
• signalling problems
• SHEEP ON THE LINE
• Weather, miscellaneous; too hot or too cold, we’re frankly not ready for anything.

Or that classic, “a train earlier in the journey being delayed,” which is rail-operator speak for “look, everything is broken and we frankly cannot explain it anymore.”

Travel is not a novelty; it is how millions of people get to families, jobs, medical appointments and the places that glue life together. And we have normalised a level of dysfunction that would end any other service industry overnight.

So until something changes, I will continue to file claims. I will continue to mentor rookies. And I will continue to will every 14-minute delay into a 15, not because I enjoy the chaos (I do, a bit), but because someone has to use the only tool we have. And I will raise a festive glass to my most unexpected income stream: Delay Repay, my loyal little side hustle, whilst wishing for a better system in 2026.

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Vix Leyton is a consumer expert at thinkmoney and stand up comedian.

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