Great Northern Reviews 

Terrible service and negligent communication when there are problems. Awful awful awful.

AVOID at all costs unless it saves a significant amount of time from your journey. This is a genuine competitor for least reliable rail service in the UK. Your train is not guaranteed to show up on time. It's not guaranteed to reach its destination. The destination is not guaranteed to stay the same. The train is not even guaranteed to show up. You may also find them giving multiple different reasons for a disruption as the journey goes on. They have slowly destroyed every ounce of good faith and trust I had for them over the year and a half I've used them. Save yourself the time and the stress. AVOID.

Utterly, utterly disgraceful rail service! At all levels of customer engagement, without doubt, the worst company I have ever had the displeasure of dealing with. The absolute stress they cause thousands of commuters on the St Pancras - Arlesey route on a daily basis is extraordinary! I hate everything about them all with a passion. If they even think of raising their rail fares this year.........

I honestly don’t know how people commute everyday not knowing if they can get to work or home. I use the train a few times a month for the last 10 years. In the last 6 months. All my journeys but one has either been cancelled or delayed by over 20 mins.
Trains themselves fine but when your one job is to supply a train to get on a time you advertise, how you can you be this unreliable?
Also approx £20 for 45 mins journey on train (outside London) how do you justify that? 😂

Utter utter crap as per usual unfortunately if you want a drink and have London meetings and need to get home you have to take this service…. Will take 4 hours plus to get back this evening in the car it’s around 2 hours…. Might have to give up drinking as not sure I can face going back on this service again!

Obviously just like all British trains this is massively overpriced and over sold so shareholders can kick back. Clean trains though, although it took a global pandemic for them to find the Hoover.

Warning if buying tickets from a ticket machine, the machine will refuse you off peak fares until after 10am. Don't let it rob you further, just go to a human at a ticket office.

The amount of times I have had trains cancelled on me before work and after work is a joke. Prices going up every year yet same crap service. What are we paying more money for?

What an absolute joke...after 4months in lockdown and looking forward to working again...this railway line is making getting back to work stressful.
Same old problems.
Monday morning delays and probably every other day when they get n a roll.
If I worked this unreliable I’d be out of business..complete sham

I was given both a ticket and a penalty fine at the same time for the same journey, I raised this with Northern and they ignore it. I was also tapped on the shoulder by a member of staff- which during these Covid times. I didn't think was allowed. I raised this with Northern too, and they say that ok to do. My advice dont use Northern trains if you can avoid it.

Racism against young black male

Now I’m qualified and working in the NHS having finished my degree.
When I use to commute to uni I faced racial discrimination and if you dint want to believe it’s racist I was definitely treated unfairly.
One morning during the week I was communing to university. I came off the train at Hatfield station along with many other people going to work, uni etc. A ticket inspector came out the train to check if had a ticket on me or if my ticket was valid. Why did she go directly to me and not check anyone else’s ticket? She didn’t check anyone’s ticket for the whole journey from Finsbury Park to Hatfield but when I come off the train she walks out to ask if I have a valid ticket? Furthermore I was on my way to exit the station so even if my ticket wasn’t valid or if I didn’t have one I would have been dealt with by the inspectors at the train barrier entrance.
Try to understand the way I felt in this situation, so many people came off the train and the ticket inspector only came directly to me to check for my ticket.

As one of the few people still left in employment in this country now, I am still making the normal amount of use of the service between Peterborough and Huntingdon during the week. Last Sunday saw A LOT of snow fall in the Peterborough area. Naturally, I was concerned about my trip the following morning, so deliberately remained prudently-minded about the trains, and went to meet the earliest one the next morning at 04:20am. To my utter surprise though, it not only arrived, but did so 20 minutes early, allowing me the opportunity to sit on my own, in a nice warm empty carriage while wearing my pointless muzzle; a ludicrous position I often find myself in. True, it did then leave about 15 minutes late, and yes, it did mysteriously stop half-way along the rout for about 5 minutes, and no, I didn't get an explanation for either of these times. However, I did arrive well within time at my final destination, and was able to start work on time - we must all do our bit to provide for those poor, helpless teachers who just can't quite find it in them to be bothered, remember!

The following day, the snow had not cleared completely, so again, I allowed for this. This time though, absolutely no trouble at all. The rest of the week has also been flawless - WELL DONE TO EVERYONE AT GREAT NORHTERN! 4 stars only though; it really wouldn't be too much trouble for the driver to say a couple of words on the PA when we are stuck in the middle of nowhere.

To anyone who has suffered, can I suggest you think more wisely about the logistics of running a train service, and allow for this.

OK, rant over.

I HATE THIS SERVICE.
There are always delays with this useless service which unfortunately I have to use to go to work. I've been late for work countless of times because of them and there is nothing that can be done. Aweful.

Terrible service! Trains get cancelled and delayed all the TIME! Their service is absolute crap

I have had a strange issue with the great northern booking website. The dates on the ticket came out wrong, I am absolutely sure I select the right dates, I always double check and I had other person with me that check also before we buy. We arrived at the train station to go to Scotland for a wedding and for our surprise, the ticket didn't work. We had to buy other ticket and trying to manage to receive a refund for the error that was not ours, the customer service was terrible, keep pushing you from the phone to email and nobody solve or help in anything. I will never use this company again and don't recommend at all!!!

Absolutely shocking how it’s a spin of a coin wether the heating is on in cold conditions. Toes cold, can see my breath. This is not acceptable.

Complaints team on Twitter are useless. Even after explaining it’s not a defect on the train but a case of turning on the saloon door heating they still ask for the car number and say they will report it to maintenance!

It’s not a defect! It’s terrible management, terrible care to your paying customers.

All it takes is a flyer to go out to the drivers to make sure they set the heating on in cold conditions. Train managers should drum this into operational staff.

Get this sorted once and for all Great northern!

What a winning service and great train ride.plenty of seats.
clean toilets.happy efficient staff.the one drawback is scruffy smelly in washed rude nasty commuters always moaning and swearing.when they have world beating train service.But they are ignorant as they have never been on a train abroad t o realise how great it is.

Only 1 word I can use to describe northern rail - Shitee.

So frustrating about their services almost delays and cancels every single day! The app is useless and so usually you get multiple time tables one on the app, one at station, one at platform, absolutely horrendous!! People who run the service needs to step down immediately!

Great Northern don't even deserve 1 star, their train services are that poor. rarely punctual, frequently cancelled without any prior notice. They also charge higher amount even to travel within London / Oyster zones. I don't know how this is not regulated. In nutshell, paying for the rubbish service. TfL is more reliable than this.

How fantastic they have implemented tap with your card to pay, no need to purchase tickets every day! Problem is it doesn't calculate a return fair and charges you two singles. So basically paying double. Absolutely disgusting