Great Northern Reviews 

Great Northern advertises free Wifi on trains marked with the blue ‘Wifi’ badge. My train was and always is, so I rely on it to access my e-ticket should an inspector ask. The WiFi was down on my travel date, so I was unable to provide the e-ticket and fined an excessive £77.60. I appealed this, providing proof of timely purchase and, despite the panel stating they can now see I made payment, they say the issue is that I couldn’t provide proof of purchase at the time - so they are still progressing with the additional £77.60 additional fee. Completely harsh and unreasonable.
In summary, poor service on the train, callous treatment of customers, and acts of unfairness & greed to take more of your money - even when an honest mistake has been made. Avoid travelling with Great Northern if you can.

Honestly zero stars would be too good! Train cancelled and had to catch an earlier one as had bookings in London for my daughter’s birthday. Staff at St Neots train station were rude told me it was my fault and I should have known the train was cancelled despite it showing on time less than 24hrs before hand. Then they tried to charge me £17 more for a new ticket compared with the same ticket on Trainline. They deserve a pay cut not a pay rise bring on AI service. If everyone else approached their jobs in the same way we would all be out of work! Disgusting service!

Carlos on Sunday ( today) Cambridge to London Kings Cross in the morning. He was on the train checking tickets and I made a genuine mistake with the type of ticket I had and being an older woman he didn't make me get off at a deserted platform but let me continue to London. Thank you Carlos.

The shixxxtest train company you can deal with there isn't a single day without an issue, and plus they made the tickets even more expensive now so you're practically paying for fxxxxking yourselves over. And even if you apply for their “ticket refund” they give you back like £4 from nearly a £20 ticket from more than 1 hour delay and cancelled train, because of not enough staff they say. What a pile of 💩. And the best part is you always see them sitting at the station drinking a f tea and doing absolutely nothing. What a nonsense.

If I could give 0 stars I would.
Staff are so rude.
Ask them for help and they either act like your stupid with comments like ‘I can’t keep telling people, look at the sign’, despite announcements saying to ignore the signs for that platform (London Bridge staff) or just tell you the wrong thing completely (their staff told me to get a particular train, and then I got fined at the destination for having the wrong ticket). Outrageous!

F***king overpriced terrible service that my son has no choice but to use getting home from school. Trains are regularly cancelled forcing him to travel home in the dark at 14yrs old. Unacceptable and shoddy service. When he asked for help at the station desk he was met with zero assistance or empathy. Just terrible, if I could give minus stars I would.

Went from Manchester to WGC on a Sunday and when I got to Kings Cross the whole line was cancelled the day before. Had to make alternative travel at my extra cost and Great Northern don’t have the minimal decency to refund me for that part of my journey. Utterly outrageous and just not right for someone trying to travel. Can’t trust the service at all and will drive instead as the system has failed!

Appalling! We paid for first class at a weekend (don’t) firstly it was a Rip off double the price for nothing no food , drink or better seats / carriages. Added to that the first class carriage was so full on our outbound journey that we had to sit in standard and there was no first class carriage on our return . So ripped off tried claiming and no help. Avoid at all costs and never book first class

Overcrowded trains, tatty carriages, filthy seats, and I found it impossible to log in to their WiFi - not a pleasant journey!

I have been using this service for over 10 years.

In that time there have been constant delays, service alterations, cancellations, lack of information and strikes.

The service has never improved, never become more reliable, never increased the number of trains, never reduced journey time.

Simply one of the worst train services I have used.

Due to the nature of monopolisation there are no alternatives other than to drive which would likely be quicker and less expensive were it not for the congestion charge which allows atrocious companies like GNR to charge exorbitant sums for a truly sub-par service.

20th December 2023 14.27 london kings cross to royston 2 adults and two children aged 12 and 9 years old.

On this journey we purchased all our tickets through the trainline.com

We were stopped when asked for our tickets by a great northern lady inspector who would not entertain any reason or compassion considering we were a family travelling to royston with a fair explanation and documentation to support.

What then turned out to be an horrific and embarrassing example of bullying on a train in front of many other passengers who also found it distressing and unreasonable considering we were a family travelling together. My children also found it extremely uncomfortable and embarrassing. And I would like to know what you're going to do about this immediately before I go to the rail ombudsmen and local MP.

First we explained that we have a family railcard but have left it at home luckily i have the receipt of the yearly railcard and explained that I also realised trainline does add the discount automatically which we didn't realise either. Provided a driving licence and she even asked my children for their ID! Followed by asking my wife how tall she was whilst sitting down. A bizarre set of events and one we are extremely saddened by.

I have all grabs of the receipts.

We are utterly disgusted with this experience. You don't see us complaining every week when we experience late trains and constant replacement bus services to get to Cambridge from Royston.

I want to be substantially compensated and this inspector be disciplined for her actions as I have seen and witness her on previous occasions being rude and abrupt to other families and individuals, she's known for it.

Aslef, GN should be embarrassed on the service they run.

£3700 and increasing each year… for what? For an unreliable service with problems every day!!

Strike over working conditions and overtime pay… we barely get a f**king train when the service is actually running

I live in Australia but made an error in assuming that the UK was a first world country with normal companies. Big Mistake! I bought a couple of first class advance returns on Great Northern Rail - bigger mistake! I want to change the return date. Shouldn't be rocket science should it? Well actually I am now trapped in the Great Northern Maze. This can't be done on-line or over the phone as you might with a real company. It apparently can only be done in person at a Great Northern Station. You might think that would include any that their trains stop at but you would have-course be wrong. Most are managed by another provider. Their phone help line can't tell you the nearest one to you but will offer to play a game with you whereby you think of the name of a station and he'll tell you if it is one of theirs! It's like something from a Monty Python sketch only you get to lose real money in dealing with these clowns. Honestly save yourself some money buy a pair of roller-skates instead. It'll be better for your blood pressure and probably far quicker.

Great Northern is responsible for St Neots Station, but it took them weeks of complaints before a meaningful reply was emailed to the family member who has now been issued with a debt recovery letter from Eurocarparks, which shares the carpark with the endorsed one,APCOA. Finally we have been told that this part of the carpark is not owned by the railway. In error the ‘ offender’ twice parked in a Eurocarparks bay when she had prepaid APCOA, and Great Northern’s tardiness in finally telling us that the land isn’t theirs, meant we could not appeal via POPLA, and now the ‘ fine ‘ has more than tripled with threats from the debt company. The parking confusion resulting from this shared carpark has been reported since 2017 but Great Northern state it is passengers’ fault. Hence they are ignoring their own promise of passenger’ after care’ and as apparently Eurocarparks is on land not owned by the railway( despite a large St Neots Station within their bays), Great Northern refuses to help in any way. So indirectly Great Northern is feeding innocent passengers to the greedy parking cowboys by refusing to make the distinction between the two carparks clearer!

First class? What first class? Had booked first class from Devon to King Lynn. The GWR section was very good, comfy seat,quiet,food and drink. Then on the Northen section terrible, a real bone shaker. Seat so uncomfortable, obvious people in this carrige with normal tickets, loud rude and always on the phone. no tickets checked or else they would of been moved. Such a bone shaker been thrown arounf ny glassed frll off my head and my suitcase fell out of it hold. Definitely not worth paying for....

I am sorry Trustpilot, you should allow 0 stars as 1 is too much for this service.
Great Northern is the most horrible, unreliable railway company you can have in this country. Even worse than London underground.
Government, DO NOT ASK ME to use public transport, when from London King's cross to King's Lynn where I live it takes 2 hr 53 min with 2 changes and 2 BUS REPLACEMENTS for a journey of only 100 miles. This has been going on for way too long IT IS NOT ACCEPTABLE ANYMORE.
There is ALWAYS problems!!!!!!
If you are not able to keep this service on just shut down and sort out your problems properly and THEN re-open to the public.
I am not even talking about the prices which are ridiculously expensive for this service, we should literally have free tickets to go back home at this conditions.
Now get your car and commute, Great northern is useless.

Cant leave no stars but avoid at all costs. I paid for a 1st class ticket from Kings X to York, the Wi-Fi didn’t work, there was no complimentary food or drink and the AC in our carriage didn’t work, the conductor was very apologetic but the email I got from Customer Service was an absolute joke and full of drivel. Worth paying extra and going with LNER

I travelled from York to crawley on 6.10.23 and returned the same day. On both journeys I had to change at Stevenage. I had a major problem on my journeys especially the return because I had not taken the plug for my phone charger cable so my phone ended up dying. The problem was I had a digital railcard on it so if a train crew member wanted to see the railcard I couldn't show them. Whilst waiting for the delayed Stevenage to Peterborough train I dropped into the little office on the platform and asked what I should do if I was asked for my railcard. I have to give a massive shout out to Supervisor Dominic and his staff who plugged my phone their equipment to see if they could add a bit of charge "just in case". Dominic also told me to tell the train manager to phone him if I had difficulties with the phone and railcard. Thank you so much for trying to help me. I really appreciated your kindness!

Disgusting trains WITH NO TOILETS which are never on time

Surely the least liked & least trustworthy company in the UK? Will drain every penny out of you and give you a 2/10 service. No morals, just all about money. Nothing would make me happier than the company to disappear