Great Northern Reviews 

252
TrustScore 1.5 out of 5

1.5

While we don't verify specific claims because reviewers' opinions are their own, we may label reviews as "Verified" when we can confirm a business interaction took place. Read more

To protect platform integrity, every review on our platform—verified or not—is screened by our 24/7 automated software. This technology is designed to identify and remove content that breaches our guidelines, including reviews that are not based on a genuine experience. We recognise we may not catch everything, and you can flag anything you think we may have missed. Read more

Review summary

Created with AI, based on recent reviews

Evaluating 53 reviews, most reviewers were let down by their experience overall. Travelers frequently report that regional trains are constantly delayed or cancelled without proper warning, leaving daily commuters stranded on dark platforms for extended periods. Consumers also strongly emphasize that standard ticket prices are extremely expensive considering the consistently poor quality and inefficient management of the entire railway network. Though some customers experienced severe disruptions, a few reviewers praised individual staff members for offering exceptionally kind and helpful assistance during difficult travel situations. Passengers additionally noted that unexpected schedule changes frequently ruin daily commutes and consistently cause missed professional appointments across the entire region.

What people talk about most

Service

Reviewers highlight negative aspects of service, consistently reporting widespread unreliability, frequent... See more

Staff

Consumers express deep frustration and dissatisfaction regarding the staff and general crew availability.... See more

Cancellation

Customers consistently note negative experiences with cancellation, pointing to an unreliable service and... See more

Location

Clients share ambiguous opinions on location, experiencing long journeys from London stations like King's... See more

Price

Customers had negative experiences with price, consistently reporting that train tickets are far from cheap... See more

Reviews shaping this summary

Rated 1 out of 5 stars

A company ran by the most clueless useless members of staff. Good luck trying to get an answer out of an easy question like "excuse me is this train running?" or "does this train stop at ____?". Inste... See more

Rated 1 out of 5 stars

Trains from Cambridge to Kings Cross are often delayed. The information board will say that a train is running just 3 or 4 minutes late, but when it does arrive slightly late at Cambridge, it just sit... See more

Rated 1 out of 5 stars

Less than zero. Abysmal in every way, trains service is unreliable, expensive and utterly inefficient. We pay a kings randsome for an unfit, poorly managed service. They could not arrange a piss up i... See more

Rated 1 out of 5 stars

Shockingly bad service from this train operator. Trains mainly late or cancelled with regular claim that either staff haven`t turned up or signals faulty. Andy Burnham has completely failed in impro... See more


1.5

Bad

TrustScore 1.5 out of 5

252 reviews

5-star
4-star
3-star
2-star
1-star

No history of asking for reviews

This company hasn't invited their customers, so reviews may not be representative

How this company uses Trustpilot

See how their reviews and ratings are sourced, scored, and moderated.

1.5

All reviews

(252)

54 reviews in the last 12 months

Write a review
Companies on Trustpilot aren't allowed to offer incentives or pay to hide reviews. Reviews are the opinions of individual users and not of Trustpilot. Read more

Rated 1 out of 5 stars

Northern rail billions of pounds…

Northern rail billions of pounds Company is very slack, and courses too many constant disruption to people using your Trains. This is unacceptable to the people ;after your wrong doing you expect them to pay again to travel.

We never agreed to lend you money we wanted a service From you ;which you promise to meet for the payments you recieve. Customers are then given a Job without pay to claim your own money back because you have it now, in your banks and we have nothing ;but inconvience of waiting longer ,and waiting five days for your money back.

People are left stranded this is out of order or pay again what happen's, if the customer as no more funds if you even get that option with 310 trains cancelled daily; despite train fairs going up yearly ,and as neally doubled on some Journeys within the past 10 years.

A lot of people are struggling and there livelihoods depend on you. That's why there use your trains.

People on budgets and working class use affordable tickets and use of public transport are essential instead of having a car .You should correct your mistakes and stop letting people down; if you was a family,friend or a boss you would be labelled a waste of space. Would you bother with them again? THE ANSEW IS NO ! Your company seriously as issues it's not dealing with and frankly have no respect for the People. The Government should now get rid of your company because 1,000s of trains are cancelled weekly ,and all we hear his excuses all the time.

We dont want your excuses !!Just to get to A to B at the times you specify; without the unreliability. Buses manager it !!! Why can't Northern rail you owe it to the people?! I'm stranded tonight 50 miles away from home!

This company as now let me down loads of times, and sometimes having to pay again to get home; through no communication from them.

Note to the public: Claim compensation for missed train journeys, and if need be you should send a reasonable Hotel Bill or Long journey taxis fairs and you could even claim lose of earnings expenses back if stranded; if there don't pay take them to Court,and bill them for your time.

Northern rail: I think you will sort yourselfs out then. We as the public have the Power, not you!

January 3, 2020
Unprompted review
Advertisement
Rated 1 out of 5 stars

First class joke

Bought first class tickets for a more comfortable quieter journey. What a joke. No ticket inspectors so first class gets rammed by students, most of whom boast about not having tickets at all let alone first class. When I complained the Customer Service at Kings Lynn just said. Don’t buy first class then! What a joke of a company

November 12, 2019
Unprompted review
Rated 1 out of 5 stars

So poor at every single level

So poor at every single level, trains are always late, often cancelled never clean. They are not open with customers with issues and seek to deflect blame.

November 8, 2019
Unprompted review
Rated 1 out of 5 stars

Customer always loses.

New trains are out, but they are more unreliable than the old ones, so angry.

To add insult to injury you then get the ticker inspectors coming up and down, almost like a hit squad.

October 29, 2019
Unprompted review
Advertisement
Rated 1 out of 5 stars

Cancellation and delays everyday! No drivers???

Daily cancellations apparently due to no train drivers - checked the Govia Thameslink Railway website for Great Northern job vacancies - one job only advertised "Competency Development Manager" ! Doesn't this suggest they have a full complement of drivers on their books? How come the drivers aren't turning up for work or are there not enough of them? We deserve a full and open explanation and a plan to resolve this daily nightmare. Govia Thameslink need to demonstrate real commitment to the customer service standards quoted on their website!

October 6, 2019
Unprompted review
Rated 1 out of 5 stars

Horrendous service

Since the timetable change my train never runs on time. I was not asked whether I would like the timetable to be changed and the 0718 train which used to get me into London at 0800 on time now is expected at 0814. The two later trains arrive within 3 minutes of each other but are always late. I now have to tube to get to work for 0830 whereas before I walked so not only has my fare gone up but now I have to pay extra to tube it to work. 15 minute delay repay gives around £4.50 back on my journey. It is beyond a joke and I can’t believe the cost is going up again next year for a totally unreliable service. If you can’t afford to pay for more drivers don’t pay such huge salaries and you will be able
to afford more staff. I commute 3 days a week but I am seriously thinking of giving up my job to stop having such horrendous journeys

October 4, 2019
Unprompted review
Advertisement
Rated 1 out of 5 stars

Rubbish service

Rubbish service! Every week trains are delayed or cancelled, absolutely ridiculous! Pay so much money every day to commute and having to deal with delays all the time! A lot of people are counting on your services and pay a lot for it! Why can’t you just just get it right???

September 26, 2019
Unprompted review
Rated 1 out of 5 stars

This is the worst train service... 0 stars

This is the worst train service I have ever known. Every single day without fail trains are cancelled at peak commute times. I find myself genuinely shocked if on a rare occasion trains are running, or even more miraculously running on time.
I do not understand how the daily announcement of lack of train crew gets used. Surely you could ensure staff are in work on time.
I feel there is a loop of complaint announcements that are put on instead of actual trains.
Considering the extortionate cost of this “service”, one would assume you would actually get what is expected of a train line. Shocking and extremely disruptive.

September 12, 2019
Unprompted review
Advertisement
Rated 1 out of 5 stars

Great Northen trains - why can't I give it a 0 star rating?

Every evening before leaving work I check the status of trains on what used to be called the London City line from Highbury & Islington to my home station Hornsey and every other evening or so, I have to travel home by a different and much less convenient route owing to continuing cancellations. Sometimes all seems well but by the time I reach Highbury, the situation has changed out of the blue, train after train is cancelled.

This must be the WORST train operator in the UK. It's gone beyond a joke - "lack of train crews" is currently the most common reason given so why can't more train drivers be trained and/or employed to provide the service GTR are contracted to provide? This isn't a recent or transient problem, it's been going on for the whole of 2019!

And when a train does appear, you're lucky to get a seat as they are so overcrowded. Finally, who decreed the new class 717 trains should have far fewer (and very hard & uncomfortable) seats than the old trains? This results in more standing room with more passengers having to stand - they might as well use cattle wagons for carriages.

August 16, 2019
Unprompted review
Rated 1 out of 5 stars

A diabolical train operator

A diabolical train operator. 9ne excuse after another. Most common being a shortage of drivers. Why is that?? Other train operators don't seem to have such a huge difficulty. I put it down to incompetent management. If this was a proper business with competition, the managers would be fired and so they should. It's like a third world transport service in utter chaos. As employees of Great Northern, you should feel embarrassed and ashamed.

August 9, 2019
Unprompted review
Rated 1 out of 5 stars

Hopelessly unreliable

This is the 8th day in a row that my service has been cancelled. Its impressively bad. Slow trains, no staff, no updates, and when the trains are running they are completely overcrowded. Hopeless

August 6, 2019
Unprompted review
Rated 1 out of 5 stars

Absolutely appalling "service"

Absolutely appalling service. When the Weather was extremely warm I expected to have cancellations, even though in Africa, South East Asia, India etc it gets considerably warmer than here and those train tracks don't buckle.
Today however (31/07/2019) it was not when I got on the first bit of the morning commute from Cuffley to Finsbury park. Firstly the 6:41 train got cancelled for no valid reason then 16:49 was delayed by 10 minutes. Then when the train got going it stopped at every stop for overly long and then eventually was told at Alexandra palace that the train will terminate there. Once there the tannoy announcement said to wait at platform 2, which was not the platform where we stopped. Waiting there for what felt like 10 minutes then another tannoy announcement said that that train had been cancelled and we need to got to platform 1. What got me was that the passengers just walked like sheep to the slaughter to the next platform excepting the disgustingly poor "service". A commute that should take 1 hour took 1 hour and 50 minutes.Trains are more reliable in some 3rd world countries than in the UK. Pathetic!

July 31, 2019
Unprompted review
Advertisement
Rated 1 out of 5 stars

Absolute Disgrace!!!

Absolute Disgrace!!!! Travelled well tried to travel down to London Kings Cross form Kings lynn Norfolk, started well got a seat on the 08:26am into London from then on it went downhill, thought we were going all the way through until on the tannoy this service is now terminated at Cambridge due to over running maintenance work on the line into Kings Cross, had to disembark and get on another train into London Liverpool Street, the train was already full up and we were packed into it like sardines, only to be more packed due to people getting on through other stops, after a lovely day out in London got on the 17:11 train to kings lynn from Kings Cross nice seat near a toilet, then over tannoy 39 min delay due to no driver !!great!! Okay train eventually leaves upon nearly reaching Cambridge another tannoy saying this service is now terminated due to no driver to split the current train we were on down to four carriages for Kings Lynn, had to swap yet again and stand for the majority of the way, Great Northern absolute Farce, I could have laid a bunch of tracks with some help form a gang of chinamen and got there quicker .

July 28, 2019
Unprompted review
Rated 1 out of 5 stars

Overpriced and unreliable

I used to complain about Trenitalia, the primary train operator in Italy. This is up to when I started to commute between London and Cambridge.

I looked up for the price of an annual ticket between Mondovì and Torino (that used to be my home-to-university journey), and it currently costs the equivalent of £893 (covering 80 km and with an average of 2 trains every hour). London Kings Cross to Cambridge is a 100 km trip, and being quite a busy route it counts approximately 5 trains per hour. Annual cost: £5108 (no, it doesn’t add up even with the due proportions of distance and train frequencies). Quality-wise, the service is similar (crowdedness, delays, cancellations due to “person hit by a train”-sort of accidents).

Yet the best part comes when you compare the disruptions due to “extreme weather conditions”. UK services are not designed to withstand air temperatures of 30 degrees or above, and have similar issues when it comes to (light) snow. I do understand that British weather is generally mild (or it has been up to now), I do not understand why British fares are that expensive compared to other countries that (need to) have higher standards of infrastructures.

July 26, 2019
Unprompted review
Rated 1 out of 5 stars

Please, please, please lose the franchise.

Horrendous to say the least. From their technology (apps, ticket machines etc) to their trains, it barely works. Everything seems to be hanging by a thread.

I'd love for them to lose the franchise.

July 17, 2019
Unprompted review

Is this your company?

Claim your profile to access Trustpilot’s free business tools and connect with customers.

Get free account

The Trustpilot Experience

Anyone can write a Trustpilot review. People who write reviews have ownership to edit or delete them at any time, and they’ll be displayed as long as an account is active.

We use dedicated people and clever technology to safeguard our platform. Find out how we combat fake reviews.

Learn about Trustpilot’s review process.

Here are 8 tips for writing great reviews.

Verification can help ensure real people are writing the reviews you read on Trustpilot.

Offering incentives for reviews or asking for them selectively can bias the TrustScore, which goes against our guidelines.

Take a closer look