Great Northern Reviews 

First Class area seemed to have vastly improved on some of their newer trains, travelled from London Kings Cross to Cambridge. A very fast non-stop direct service which makes it much better than Greater Anglia and also first class availability which the latter lacks. Extremely comfortable seats with recline large tables, huge luggage racks, plenty of 3-pin plug sockets, reading lamps, coat hook, arm-rests, ample legroom and a very fast ride and on time. Nice to see a proper effort made to first class.

Left a service from Paddington to Cambridge for a roundtable meeting. Meeting was due to start at 1pm, train should have arrived at 12.30, meeting 5 minutes walk from train station so plenty of time to get a coffee and get settled ahead of the meeting. A problem with an earlier train however meant I was over an hour late, missed my meeting and had to head straight back home again. Submitted a delay repay request, and they reduced my compensation, claiming my delay was no longer than an hour to get out of paying what I was rightly due. Profits over passengers

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 ____?". Instead of being answered normally you will probably be answered by someone doing their best impression of Beefy Burt from Horrid Henry with their response EVERY TIME of "I dunno". They're all useless and their delay repay policy is absolutely poor.

Terrible company, made us late by over an hour due to their delay. They claimed we were delayed by 59 minutes so they can get out of paying full delay repay refund, so unless you literally video on your phone as you get in to your final destination, showing times at the station etc, 'their records' will say you didn't to wriggle out of their obligation. And don't trust these sites that track train history, they only input data that comes from the 'train's automatic record system', which is not accurate either.

Another day of abysmal service. It took me 3 hours to get home instead of the usual half an hour journey. I left my office in Euston before 5pm and eventually got home at 8pm. The excuse? Somebody jumped at Stevenage at 1p.m. Does it really get so many hours to get back on track? Instead of clearing quickly the passengers are treated like cattle,actually worse as we were kept waiting at Kings cross for an hour and then on the train for another 2 hours. Absolutely apalling.

Absolutely terrible 😞

Protected by the police, lawfare and the government, there is no way customers /passengers will ever get a good service from this corrupt and dishonest company. You will be treated as the contemptible nuisance that you are perceived as being by the staff who pretend to work there. Any honest and fair complaints you have will be disregarded and treated as 'inappropriate or unacceptable'. Are you sick of it yet? Don't hold your breath if you want improvement.

What am I paying for?
This service is unrealiable, stress inducing and uncomfortable. The Hertford North to Moorgate train line is literally my lifeline and it seems every weekend there are engineering works which leaves me stranded as I don't have a car and need to get into Central London. Added to the sporadic cancellations on the Monday to Friday service getting to and from work in the city...overall Great Northern are crap and are bad for my nervous system ! Why is the service so unreliable? 💔

My train (18:22 from Hatfield) was late by about 20 minutes. This meant I missed my changeover at Stevenage and got home 59 minutes late. I went to get my delay repay claim, and accidentally put in 19:22 instead of 18:22, so understandably it got rejected. They gave me the option to resubmit because of my accidental mishap, and then when I did, they rejected it again because "I've already submitted an application regarding this leg of the journey". It was a £42 ticket, come on.

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 improving Northern Rail, if anything it`s worse than ever. People talk about poor productivity of UK workforce.It would be a start if you could provide a service that allows themto get to work on time.

Trains are always delayed or cancelled, company does its upmost to weasel out of compensation. Say a train is delayed, then cancelled, so you get on the next train after a 30/40 min delay? This company thinks that any delay timings start from that train you finally managed to get. So instead of basing delayed by 40 mins, in their world it is an on time journey.

Absolute joke and run by grifters, needs to be renationalised asap.

Fantastic support offered (without prompting) help at Hitchin train station. Helping Grandma load twins and twin buggy on train. TQ so much.

This company is the possibly the least reliable I’ve ever had misfortune of using.
4 times in the last year I have opted to use train service Downham Market to London King’s Cross… This morning will be the last time as they have managed to score 100% delay/ cancellation on all 4 .
Arrived early to catch train to London to coincide with my daughter’s day layover from Singapore before onward journey…
The planned 4 hours meet up has just been reduced to 3 ( if next scheduled train actually arrives and departs on time)…. Completely unreliable and I will drive from now on ..There is nothing great about this company at all .

Over the years I have written pretty much identical reviews for Great Northern. I commute to London Mon - Fri and everyday the trains are either late or cancelled. It causes so much stress and anxiety when you are always late for work or meetings. Also the daily grind of an 1hr 15min journey each way taking regularly well over 2hrs each way. Staff are so used to cancellations they demonstrate zero empathy and mastered the art of shoulder shrugs.

When you spend £6k a year on trains and yet have zero reliability and powerless to be heard as great Northern just don’t care. It’s frustrating

Embarrassing company need to be taken over by someone else

I signed up specifically to leave a review on just how absolutely pathetic this so called "service" is! I am unfortunately bound by location with these wastes of space being the only available option to travel to London for me, but if you can avoid them at all, do your utmost to do just that!! Extortionate prices for something that has more down time than Dolly Parton at a bra burning event!! They will blatantly admit that they have a shortage of staff and not bat an eyelid at cancelling a scheduled train just when there seems to be a bit of sunshine, which admittedly is as scarce as chicken teeth, but forward planning seems to be as foreign a concept as string theory!! Leaving their customers in hellish limbo with no compensation in sight appears to be the only thing that gets these lowlifes any form of excitement!!
Pathetic, awful, painful, etc, etc, etc. Whichever negativity you can conceive of, these guys are the poster children!!!!

I'll never take a train from Cambridge to London with them again. It's better to drive and leave the car to the closest park and ride.
On my way back, three trains were cancelled in a row. Since I had to be in Cambridge by 6, I had to take a taxi (£350). They claimed that I could have taken the forth train and refused to give me a refund for the extra costs. Given the additional time to arrive at the destination, it wouldn't be enough to arrive in time. I went to the train station way in advance just in case a train was delayed or cancellated. I cannot foresee three cancelled trains! Moreover, would you trust to wait for a train after three cancellations? The daily return ticket was £70! That's a lot! The service is totally unreliable! They always complain about lack of resources but I start thinking that is just bad management.

Web site is a horrible disaster. The company inexplicably makes buying tickets difficult. Nationalization is clearly the correct course of action.

Left a bag of goodies on tran in rush as had to chang trains and The gentleman at kings cross station platform 9/10 to to Cambridge went above and beyond and tracked my bag down and got it on next train back to kings cross however they sent the wrong bag back so after another 1.5 hours it arived safely totel (3 hours) waiting but was on my way .very long day for me but the bag was important. Really appreciated the gentle man (superior) for its safe return

Today ( Sunday) I had to go to Liverpool Lime Street ( for work) and most of the return train trips were cancelled.
The option I had was to take the 20:15 train that would take me to Euxton Balshaw lane in 2 hours, meaning I would arrive home at 22:30.
Terrible service as usual….
I am really disappointed and I cannot get a refund either