Great Northern Avis 

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!

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

This train company is a pile of Horse S. H. I. T. delays and cancellations are their forte

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???

Pathetic service due to lack of drivers. Lazy no good people , don’t deserve to be employed. Not surprising our country is so ridiculous

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.

Literally delayed or cancelled more times than it runs on time. And due to a shortage of train crew? Great northern, sort it out... you are by far the worst train line I have ever had to travel on on a regular basis. Makes living in places that rely on your service less appealing.

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.

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.

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

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!

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 .

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.

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.

Great Northern are constantly cancelling scheduled trains due to lack of train crew!! This is especially true at weekends. This makes the service very unreliable. Really needs to be sorted out- employ more staff.

As with previous reviews, it is unfortunate that zero stars is not an option.

I unfortunately decided to buy a first class ticket, under the impression that this would provide a better experience/seat and maybe a drink for the extra £30.

What I got was the same cr@ppy seats and service and no extras whatsoever. When I complained about this (online obviously as there were no staff there), I got told that it was first class because of the improved experience!!!

An absolute joke of a company that I will not be using again and would advise anyone that is thinking of getting a train with them to think of a different option.

How sh1it are they this service is terrible and when they cancel their trains they expect you to pay for another ticket the next day. They need to be be nationalised at least we would make money we we were being ripped off. Rubbish service sooner the system.dies.the better

A joke, absolute joke and a total and utter joke - No train crews today - What a joke a train company that doesn’t feel it needs to run trains
Like a hospital that thinks it doesn’t need doctors and nurses or an airline that doesn’t have aeroplanes
GNR love this joke so much they keep telling it - No train crews

Would give it less than 1 star if possible. Absolute disgrace of a train operator. They have lied to their customers over the year with an unhelpful customer service when questioned. I wish I could avoid using them.

The staff at Welwyn Garden City are rude, unhelpful and show no discretion. They seem to take pleasure in others misery and are on a complete power trip.

If I could use another train provider, I would. I am legitimately looking at moving so I can avoid using this station. It pains me giving this train company any of my hard earned cash! Incompetent and consistently unhelpful and rude staff.

Avoid Great Northern at all costs!! It’s unbelievable that a customer-facing company can get away with such poor customer service.