Is it possible to take the train earlier than the station? Take the train later than your station

Often people are unable to get to the station where they bought the ticket in order to board. This happens for various reasons. First of all, it's late. Secondly, urgent issues. There are other situations. Is it possible to get a seat at other stations, or do I need to change my ticket?

According to the instructions, it probably won’t work

1. The trip must begin from the station where the ticket was purchased (according to the rules for transporting people).
2. It is impossible to replace a ticket in its pure form. You should return it and purchase another one to fill the seats that were free at the time of purchase. The place for which the ticket was returned will not be available for a certain time. This is due to the peculiarities of the system.

Practice shows - yes

In reality, things are different. The Russian Railways information service informs that data on available seats becomes available half an hour after the train departs. Theoretically, the ticket is available for sale.

The guides say otherwise. If the passenger has not returned the ticket, then the seat is assigned to him until the end of the route. In fact, many people behave this way. It often happens that people land later than the station where they bought the ticket. This may be due to the convenience of boarding, the peculiarities of the route on vacation, etc.

If the situation has developed in such a way that it is impossible to board at the ticket purchasing station, there is no need to despair.

What to do

1. Catch up with the lineup.
2. Return and buy a ticket.
3. If there are no available seats, you should check routes with transfers. You can combine it with different trains, or check out other modes of transport.

A common situation: you cannot board the train at the station from which you purchased the ticket. This happens for various reasons - being late, having business in another city, etc. Can I board the train at the next station or change my ticket?

According to the rules - most likely not.

1. The trip must begin from the station from which the ticket was purchased (passenger transportation rules).
2. You cannot “just replace” a train ticket. You can return it and take a new one - to those places that will be free at the time of purchase. Moreover, the place for which you returned the ticket will not be available - some (unpredictable) time passes from the moment the train ticket is returned until it appears in the system. These, unfortunately, are the technical nuances of the system.

In practice, most likely, yes.

In reality, everything is ambiguous. On the one side, help desk Russian Railways says that 30 minutes after the train departs, information about unoccupied seats appears - and, accordingly, the ticket can be sold.

On the other hand, the conductors claim the opposite: firstly, if you yourself have not returned the ticket, the seat continues to be yours until the end of the trip; secondly, in practice many people do this. In real life, there are often cases (especially on trains from the south) when passengers board later than the station from which the ticket was purchased. In some places it’s more convenient due to the location of train stations and ticket offices; in others, this is the route on vacation – there are many reasons.

Therefore, if circumstances are such that it would be more convenient for you to sit somewhere other than the beginning of your route, most likely you don’t have to worry.

What to do?

1. If you missed the train, but manage to catch it at a nearby station, you can try to do this.
2. The standard scheme is to return the ticket and take another one. Perhaps on the same train, perhaps on a different one, depending on the availability of seats.
3. If there are no train tickets that suit you, look at routes with transfers. Firstly, you can combine different trains (including trains long distance And high speed trains, trains, etc.). Maybe there are tickets from other stations along the route, from a neighboring city or to locality close to where you need to go. Sometimes it makes sense to look at buses, planes and other types of transport.
4. We can try

If we formulate the answer to the question: “Can I catch my train at another station?” as briefly as possible, it will turn out something like: “It’s better not to intend.” The thing is that the answer is still not unambiguous. Theoretically, it is possible, but only if you are going to board the train at a station that is next along the route to the one where your boarding is marked.

Previously controversial situations on this topic have been reviewed on the Internet. There is the opinion of Russian Railways, as well as passengers dejected by the bitter experience and the decision of courts at various levels. Summarizing the information, we can conclude that the result of your enterprise may be 50:50, depending on a number of circumstances. Starting with what the situation on the train is with seat occupancy, what decision the conductor will make, and then the rest of the higher levels of the carrier’s employees, and ending with the interpretations of trial lawyers of paragraph 1 of paragraph 16 of the Rules for the Transportation of Passengers dated July 26, 2002. If you are interested in becoming a participant in such a clarification of the truth, go for it.

Economic feasibility of reselling an empty seat in a train carriage

If we approach this problem from an economic point of view, then any road is a resource that must be used with maximum efficiency. Accordingly, it is not advisable to run trains on the road without passengers. The quality of care in the described case clearly suffers. After all, if you send your seat for resale, it is not a fact that you will not appear at any of the subsequent stations and will not claim the right to your seat on the train, you will not cause a scandal if it turns out that the seat is occupied, and you will not waste time from the train staff , drawing their attention to solving the problem. On the other hand, a half-empty train is the result of the fact that purchased seats are waiting for their passengers. At the same time, potential travelers eager to leave are told at the ticket office that there are no tickets for this train. Which situation do you prefer?

What is clear is that you will not be able to board the train at a station located along the route earlier than the one indicated on the ticket. Here the wording of the rules is clearly in harmony with logic and justice.

Russian Railways’ attitude to the existing problem of violation of buyer’s rights

It is quite remarkable that Russian Railways is considering the existing problem. In response to a question he asked via the Internet, he received an answer about the development of a new draft of rules, according to which, in such cases, boarding would be carried out directly at the seats indicated on the tickets. However, the answer was received back in 2012. So far, no new rules have been published.

Even if you bought a place for yourself, it will be put on sale again. This is a common sense requirement. So it’s better not to try to prove your case to the carrier organization, and then not waste effort and money on legal proceedings. It is better to understand that boarding passengers from a railway station other than the one indicated on the ticket is simply problematic from an organizational point of view.

Having understood the full depth of the problem and accepted the discipline of the carrier organization, plan your trip in advance in such a way as to be in the right place at the right time. Otherwise, you will end up like the famous joke: “To spite the conductor, I’ll take a ticket and walk.”

In December, I tried an interesting service provided by Ukrainian railways - “line boarding”.

The gist is this:
"My situation is as follows. I want to buy a ticket for the Kharkov - Sumy - Kiev - Uzhgorod train. All tickets for it are sold only from stations between Kharkov and Sumy, and in Kiev this train is not visible in the express system. This is done so that Kiev residents do not "They were snapping up tickets for this train, and all the seats went to residents of Eastern Ukraine... I'm making such a trick with my ears. I'm buying a ticket from Sumy to Uzhgorod, but I don't want to go to Sumy to take this train, so I need to change the boarding station to Kyiv." I described this mechanism completely

At the same time, I knew that in Russia there is no longer such an outdated Soviet system - when you need to send a telegram at the station, saying that I will sit at a different station than indicated on the ticket. That is, to put it bluntly, you can buy a ticket from Moscow to Vladivostok, and only get hooked halfway in Siberia, and your seat will be yours for the entire duration of the journey. Russian Railways are developing and changing in last years much faster than Ukr. railway Today they sent me a link to a document, which shows that this pleasant innovation was introduced in 2008, that is, 4 years ago. We read the question from the Russian Railways website:

Is it possible to land at a station other than the one indicated on the ticket?

Can I, having bought a ticket from the St. Petersburg station for the St. Petersburg - Anapa train, board at the Vyshny-Volochek station? This is dictated by the fact that the Express system from the station Vyshny Volochek does not show all seats on the train, or rather, only one econom-class train, in which almost all tickets are sold out, with tickets for any choice from the St. Petersburg station.

Alexei

Answer

In accordance with clause 30. Rules for the transportation of passengers, baggage and cargo luggage at the federal railway transport, approved by order of the Ministry of Railways of Russia dated July 26, 2002 No. 30, chief (mechanic-foreman) passenger train has the right to board passengers in unoccupied seats only in cases where passengers cannot be issued a travel document in ticket office due to a technological interruption in the operation of the Express system, and if there is a justified need for urgent departure. In this case, no more than 4 people are initially boarded in the staff car, then travel is issued using a receipt for various fees to unoccupied seats in the cars.

According to paragraph 16 of the same document, passengers' journeys must begin from the station indicated in the travel document (ticket). At the same time, according to the Directive of JSC Russian Railways No. FPDOP-03/347 dated 03/06/08, in order to improve the quality of passenger service, passengers are allowed to board at any station after the departure station indicated on the ticket, subject to the validity of the ticket and payment for travel along the route.

Services for informing train masters and station masters about passenger boarding at the following stations after the departure station indicated on the ticket on the network railways JSC "Russian Railways" are not provided.