Chilternrailways Avis 

Number of queries answered immediately with above and beyond help from staff member Abin

No concern for my wellbeing from customer services after I suffered a horrible incident in a station while going about my morning commute. The (helpful) supervisor advised me to ask Chiltern for reimbursement as my clothes required dry cleaning. Despite this, Chiltern have refused to pay the £25 bill which is stingy at best and just insulting at worst. A clear case of profits over the care of their customers.

Chiltern railways never cease to amaze me of how terrible a service they are. Had not been on a train for a year (lucky me) and got a train today only to find out that the ticket fare is now 1.30 more expensive. Trains remain with only 3 carriages during rush hour, extraordinary dirty, without heating, and now you can’t even take a bike on half of the services! Awful.

Platform confirmation at Marylebone is laughably bad. Clapped out fleet with terrible reliability, woeful overcrowding and awful WiFi. Stations are poorly maintained and energy waste is everywhere to see. It's all down to poor management and Adrian Shooter CBE must be turning in his grave.

Chiltern railways are a total joke. I was prevented from getting the 23.11 train because I was booked on the 00:005 train. They told me that this was a next day ticket so could not be used even though it was a same day return. I was then told I had to buy a new ticket and claim back the original return leg. When I went to the website I couldn’t reclaim it because it was part of a same day return ticket. It’s like they have perfected incompetence as an art form, or they are just hoping people give up trying to navigate their labyrinth of stupidity. Sadly there is no other option for travelling this route and then, at £46 day return, the government wonder why there are so many cars on the roads.

The train times and services itself were fine. I just wanted to query about the plug sockets.
I travel into London regularly and every train that I have ever been on, the plug sockets don’t work. So if someone needs to charge there phone they are unable to do so. So I was wondering if Chiltern Railways could update that.

Really bad customer service at the ticket office at Marylebone train station and the complaints department can not seem to be bothered to reply to complaints.

Chiltern Railways is a somewhat reliable railway company. I'll be honest, they have a tendency to have a lot of delays but most of them never affect me too much. Most of their Class 168 trains are clean, but way to overcrowded on peak services. At peak times, like 8am, the train has three carriages and is rammed to the door with no seats, and very little standing capacity. I think there should be more coordination of bigger coached trains for their peak journeys as they can get really crowded, especially leaving Birmingham Moor Street at around 4pm.

If that was the only part, I would leave this review at 5 stars, as it really isn't that bad. Sadly, I have had encounters with station staff being rude, power-hungry resulting in me missing my train due to THEIR miscommunication, and arrogance. They way the staff handle the situation was not acceptable, and should have been reported to professional standards.

This situation is in the past now and I am sure that these situations happen everywhere, so I'm not going to bring down my rating too much.

On top of that, a rude ticket inspector looked into all my details on his device (rail card details), while grinning at me. I found him trying to be intimidating but I once again didn't think much of it.

I haven't really had many positive experiences with staff, but I've got to give credit where credit is due to some of the train managers for doing amazing communications to the customers to keep them up to date.

Overall, the service is meh, expensive, and is somewhat reliable. For that, I will give this review 4 stars, however really it should have been 1/2.

Dealing with lost property was not an easy experience, almost deliberately obtuse.

Item lost on Dec 18th, no response at all for over 6 weeks. It took a personal contact to get a notification that it was found. Without that, I feel I would never have got a notification and the property would have been destroyed.

However, Fahad at Marylebone station was fantastic. Give that man a raise/bonus!

£80 for a day return ticket from Oxford to London and have to stand all the way back on the return journey. If the government is looking at how to improve productivity then this would be a start. Over an hour and a half out my day with no opportunity to sit and do work. Chiltern either need to offer a poor service cheaply or premium service at a premium price. Currently the customer is getting shafted both ways which is never a comfortable experience.

I have traveled Bicester North to Marylebone 6 times this month. Everytime I have to stand. Trains too short.

I’ll go MK to Euston in future

Vile company, train inspectors along with the head of prosecution in Banbury unprofessional jobsworth who target youngsters. I have written to the transport secretary about the way they handled my case and the disgusting situation they put me through. That along with overcrowded, over priced filthy trains they really don’t have a great deal to offer, shame on them however they really do not care about customers in the slightest.

Ever tried claiming a refund for one of Chiltern Rail’s frequently cancelled train services? The refund process is as unreliable as the train service. The 18.37 train service from London Marylebone was cancelled today due to unavailable train crew and I would like Chiltern Rail to confirm the reason for their unavailability.
Tried to claim online refunds for my daughter and me. Identifying the ticket number/reference (which is it please?, initially the ticket number is requested and after it is inputted the form asks for the ticket reference) is tricky because the pictures of tickets shown online don’t match the paper tickets we purchased and some pictures of tickets weren’t appearing online. Why is it necessary to input this information anyway when it is also necessary to upload photos of the tickets? Upshot is who knows whether the refunds were actually submitted as we were stuck in a seemingly never ending refund process loop…

Usual overcrowded Marleybone - Moor Street train this evening. Even the hollow 'welcome aboard' announcement didn't start until Banbury with an apology for a ''busy'' train. Is there a worse Operator ?

You go through hoops to register, giving out all your details, and then it’s flaky at best, no better than using your own phone signal.

Poor service, don’t use it very often but always delayed wish there was an alternative

Plenty of experiences to mention- dirty trains, overcrowded with no seats and super expensive. Chilvers was great at one point- shame it isn’t anymore. I’m currently in Japan riding the Shinkansen to Tokyo- now that is how you run a train service- clean, comfortable and professional staff.

Yet again bought tickets to London and had to stand packed like sardines for over 1.5 hours. Why sell too many tickets? Why not allocate seats like other companies? It's just appalling. No wonder people dont use public transport. Hang your heads in shame . Dire service.

I’m sitting on the 09.11 at Oxford Parkway, rescheduled to depart at 09.40 due to a broken train elsewhere. My one star rating is because this has become a’normal’ disruption i er the past year or so. During an 8 year campaign to build the new East West Rail from Oxford to Bicester with the link to the Marylebone line, Chiltern gave much hype about the superb quality of the trains, kept in tiptop condition, and a first class operation. The opposite is now true, with a grossly unreliable service and shoddy, failing trains. It is now 09.40 and the signal is still red. I note the next train to follow this us cancelled, due to a broken train. In half an hour there have been no announcements, other to say “The next station is Bicester Village”.

Travelled from.Wembley Stadium to Oxford. Crammed on like sardines, it was so hot I felt faint. I was elbowed and pushed, no place to hold on. Had to stand the whole way. And I paid money for this delightful experience.