National Rail Avis 

My experience with the service has been extremely stressful and deeply disappointing. Despite allowing myself plenty of time to collect my children from school, the trains are consistently unreliable. To make matters worse, the national apps are not updated effectively, leaving passengers without accurate information and causing unnecessary anxiety and disruption. This ongoing issue has made what should be a straightforward journey unreasonably difficult and stressful.

An absolutely awful company. My home neighbours their land. There are sections of up to 10 meters with no suitable boundary along the boundary line, a boundary which has a purpose to protect from the live trainline and passing trains!!

1 is beyond generous. And the words I want to use would get this review censored. So just give in to the oil barons, get a car and forget about the environment. Public transport in this country needs to be put to death

We are two pensioners living in a city. We have family in another city and after a horrendous motor trip there recently decided to buy Railcards and switch to the train. The Railcards are a big investment, the cost would pay for the petrol for three car journeys between our houses, and that's senior Railcards and without counting the actual tickets. But my beef is the website - "upload a photo" "download to the app". Ok we do have WiFi and we do have mobiles and tablets but where are we meant to have learnt these skills? It's stressful enough laying out all this money without these extra worries. I quite see that it's a lot cheaper than using people, pen and paper but please consider the practicalities for the customer.

The worst transport
Always expensive, late and never on time
You miss the connections as well and spend ages in train stations

I left my mobile in the carriage just coming back fom Oxford and realised just leaving the train in Beaconsfield. I asked for help to Peter, the station officer, who quickly took action on that and he made the necessary calls to the Marylebone station so they could check the train on arriving. They found it and Peter made the necessary arrangements to recover it. I am so grateful to Peter. He tried to help immediately with urgency and kindness. What a great customer service. Thanks also to the staff in Marylebone, Orient and Ro.

⸻

⭐️ If I could give minus 5 stars, I would.

The UK train system is without doubt the most unreliable I’ve ever experienced. They take your money well in advance, sell you so-called “cheap” tickets, and then cancel trains on the day of travel. My recent journey from Leeds to Leicester was completely ruined because one connection (Leeds to Sheffield) was cancelled, which voided the whole ticket.

Yes, they offered a refund — but that’s not the point. By the time I scrambled to book a coach at the last minute, I had to pay much more than the original fare. On top of that, staff even suggested I “stay an extra day or two” for free travel later — completely ignoring the fact that I had work commitments, and extra hotel costs would be on me.

This is not a one-off. Over the last few years I’ve had multiple journeys ruined like this. Meanwhile, trains across Europe (Belgium, France, Germany) run on time, are cleaner, cheaper, and far better managed.

The system here is broken. Train companies should be penalised for selling tickets they cannot honour, and forced to pay at least double compensation for cancellations. Until then, they’ll keep taking passengers’ money and delivering nothing.

And yet the government expects the public to “ditch cars” and rely on this shambles? Totally unrealistic.

Avoid the UK train network if you can. Unreliable, overpriced, and worst of all — no accountability.

Worst staff ever.. on gate they say ticket is valid, on train they say ticket is invalid and yiu need to buy a new ticket .. fraud

Too expensive, trains are cancelled. Buying a ticket for the first class, but there is no Internet and no plugs working we couldn't charge our phones and laptops. Rubbish service

Almost always issues on these trains. You’d expect a more organised and efficient service in a first world country, but I guess that’s quickly changing the past few years. Absolute joke. And the staff go on strike for pay rises? Do your job first and arrive on time you bunch of clowns. You don’t deserve the salaries you’re on in the first place. Writing this as my train is late and no updates on the delays.

We were a group of 5 travelling to London. We booked our tickets several weeks in advance at St Anne’s station,Lancashire in person. We asked to be seated together and were given coach and seat numbers. On boarding the train we realised only 2 out of 5 of us were seated together. The other 3 had people next to them. One being a window seat. Very disappointed. The train itself and the journey all though 14 minutes late was very good.

The National Rail website has exposed me to malware; random pop-ups from a site called Clicktripz. At this moment I do not know whether there is worse now hidden on my computer. I have emailed them but will no longer use the National Rail site until I am convinced it is safe.

I asked why the track was closed between Stoke and Stafford during most of August. Tracks closed at Stockport but this does not affect Crewe - Stoke-Stafford train.
Response 1- There are replacements buses (not responded to my question)
Response 2 - Contact train operator ( track closed)
Response 3 - Explained why closure is in place between Stoke and Stafford.

Why does it take 3 attempts?

I had a very bad journey home from Tottenham Court Road to Henley on Thames. I took the Elizabeth Line to Maidenhead after a very long wait for a Reading train. The train was extremely overcrowded and hot and smelly. It stopped on and off throughout a very long journey. When it finally arrived in Maidenhead there were no other trains. Everything was cancelled due to signal failure, probably due to the heat. It was chaos there were no staff to guide or advise. After another long wait we were told to get to the taxi rank. There was an amazing representative trying to allocate everyone to taxis. He did a phenomenal job looking after a lot of hot and disgruntled passengers. A taxi finally agreed to take 7 of us to Twyford. We got there at at 8.30 and there no trains to Henley until after 9.15pm. I was so exhausted and hungry that we clubbed to get another taxi to Henley. It took me more than 3 hours to get home.
I appreciate the issues with heat are difficult to handle but there seem to be very few staff to look after customers.
The man at Maidenhead should be highly commended for keeping his cool and looking after everyone.

I’ve been struggling with shittyitous for years, but going in this trains toilets gave whole lease for life. Today was the day it became a blessing, this group of youths started p!nk “raise your glass” I had never felt such inner joy from these meaningful lyrics it opens my eyes to a new way to see the world. I took extra care into this visit to the toiletry and proceeded to overhear some lovely Christmas, lots of laughs and cheered from the young group, it really was the embodiment of livin’ laughin’, and lovin’. Unfortunately it was getting kind of deep as some old fashioned heartbreak songs started to make thing swing the other way and as we reached closer and closer to my stop I decided that my time was up and had to awkwardly leave from the minuscule loo. They gave me a questionable look as I scuttled on past them but deep down I knew we were bros now 🫡

If I could rate this rubbish service zero star I would. National railway has to be THE worst service on earth. Even a third world country would accommodate their customers better. Trains are always cancelled, delayed and the staffs are always rude and smug. They are the most unreliable, overpriced crap service EVER. The East Midlands railways is NEVER EVER A SMOOTH JOURNEY. There is always a problem! So so overpriced for such, SUCH bad service. If I could sue this company I would, if I could swear on these reviews I would.

TERRIBLE UPSETTING RESPONSE TO A RAIL TRANSPORT SERVICE TO PAYING CUSTOMERS, CUSTOMERS HAVE BEEN STRANDED FROM KINGS LYNN TOWARDS CAMBRIDGE SINCE 2PM AND I FINISHED WORK AT 5.30PM AND TOLD NOTHING HAS BEEN DONE SINCE, STAFF RELUCTANTLY OFFERING NO SUPPORT, NO TAXIS NO BUSES AT THE STATION, I'M ANGRY AND COULD JUST SEE ANGRY CUSTOMERS ANNOYED WITH POOR SERVICE, THE MANAGERS AND BOSSES LIVE A LIFESTYLE OF HIGH SALARIES FROM HIGH TRAIN FARES AND THE CUSTOMERS SUFFER FROM THEIR INCOMPETENCE OF FAILING TO GET CUSTOMERS TO THEIR DESTINATION WITHIN REASONABLE TIMES,

IF YOU CAN'T PROVIDE A SERVICE, DON'T OR IF IT'S SUBSTANDARD, MAKE IT FREE OR CHEAPER FOR ME

ANGRY DISAPPOINTED 😞 CUSTOMER

App doesn’t work , it’s pointless. Cannot show live trains from St Pancras to Ashford . Not the first time I’ve had trouble this app.

Most expensive in Europe. Worst reliability in Europe, rubbish

The worst company ever I m not sure how they can sleep at night knowing they ruining everyone days . Everything cancelled , delayed there was not a day with no delays