Great North Eastern Railway > Reviews (36)

Ok, before I begin, I would like to give you a esction from a letter I wrote to GNER in July, about a journey from Danocaster to London...

[We arrived at Doncaster station in plenty of time, but unfortunately to see that our train was delayed. We sat in the first class lounge for a short while before opting to go outside onto the platform as there were no announcements in the first class lounge, and we wanted information on our train.
We knew the train was arriving on platform 1 as I had checked your website approximately one hour before our train was due, right before setting off to the station. According to your website there were no problems and trains were running normally.
Once on the platform there was already a train on platform one, and 1 on platform 3a. Neither of these was ours, and the one on platform 1 was not supposed to stop at Doncaster (as there was an announcement after it had been there for several minutes saying it was not for public use). After a while the train on platform 1 did leave after a while, and another train came onto the platform, once again, not ours. We were told that it was not for public boarding, yet had heard no information on our train even though it was over 10 minutes ago since it was due.
When we did hear information about our train we were told it was waiting outside the station, for a platform to become free. There was then an announcement telling all people that were travelling on the train on platform 3a to board the train as it was ready to leave. No sooner had all the people got onto the train was there an announcement saying that the same train that was ready to leave was cancelled and now going to Leeds, leaving passengers in confusion on the platforms. Minutes later there was an announcement telling all passengers for London Kings Cross to board the train on platform 1. Most people did so, however as the train was overcrowded with no seats for my family (my dad, brother and myself) to sit together, I checked the information screens for information on our train, which was still only delayed. Knowing that it was not cancelled we opted to wait for it as apposed to travel on the previous train, which we had been told was to Peterborough, then a bus to Stevenage, and a train to Kings cross. The train came into the station around an hour late.
Once on board we found our seats and made ourselves comfortable. The situation seamed to be ok, so we relaxed in the knowledge that we were going to get to Peterborough. During the journey the staff were coming around offering drinks however they were very ignorant and somewhat miserable, with none of them so much as smiling. Though I understand that they had no doubt been through a struggle with the trains that day this is surely no excuse for ignorant staff.
On arrival at Peterborough, yet more confusion. An announcement told us we were at Peterborough and that "IF" we were leaving the train here we should take all of our personal belongings with us. Considering we were told the train terminated at Peterborough we were somewhat intrigued by the use of the word, "if".

We therefore sought information from a staff member who told us that the train was now going forward to Huntingdon and Stevenage, in a manner that gave the following message: "please yourselves 'cos' I couldn't care less what you do". There had been no previous suggestion that the train was continuing onto Stevenage, yet out of the blue, it now was going there. We returned to our seats and waited. There was then an announcement saying that we had to wait for another train to arrive so that people from that train could be transferred to this one.
After a short while people form the other train began to board. We got talking to some of the people around us, who had been told that the train we were on was going not to just Stevenage, bit into London Kings Cross. Once again contradicting stories had led to confusion, with none of us actually knowing where we were now going to. There was then an announcement telling us that we were only going to Stevenage and there would be a train for us from there.
On arrival at Stevenage there was another GNER train on the a platform opposite the one that we pulled in on, with passengers disembarking this to board the train we had just got off of. We were told that our replacement train would depart from platform one, it came in and was only four carriages long. First, at Peterborough, two GNER trains worth of people were expected to merge onto one train, then all onto one four carriage train. As the train became full we began to worry, however there was then an announcement telling us to stand clear of the doors and ensuring us that there would be another train arriving straight after this had left. When it arrived, we were in disbelief. As apposed to putting us all onto one nice train (i.e. the GNER train on the opposite platform that had just come from kings cross), we had been directed to an old and run down local stopping service, no first class, seemingly no idea of the definition of the word "comfort". This train stopped at a number of stations, before we reached Kings Cross.
All in all we arrived approximately two hours and forty-five minutes late, with the journey time over double what it should have been.]

So, that was my last journey with GNER, beyond a joke, right? well, as if that wasn't enough, they only took six weeks to reply to my letter of complaint, when I got it it was an above average apology and I was given free tickets first class to anywhere on the GNER network, but why they could not have replied when they first recieved the complaint! Apparently they had had "a recent increase in the number of complaints" and if that is their customer servive standards I am not surprised. Anyway, let me now move on to my general review...

AN INTRODUCTION...
Great North eastern Railways (GNER) are one of the companies formerly run by British RailIntercity, when a reliable journey was the norm. Over time they have hit rough spots due to problems on the route, and several accidents, one or two major. One of the biggest being the hatfield rail crash.

Recently GNER has done much better, however as said above my recent journey caused me to be less than impressed.

THE ROUTE...
GNER operates services from London Kings Cross, through west Anglia, Lincolnshire, Yorkshire, Northern England And Scotland, to stations. the Main routes are:
London>Peterborough>Doncaster>Leeds (with branch lines to places such as Skipton and Harrogate, and
London>Peterborough>Doncaster>York>Newcastle>Edingurgh (with some services to Glasgow, Inverness and Aberdeen).
The routes are generally good and are much faster than the midland or west coast mainline.

STATIONS...
Many stations have been, or are being refurbished, my local stations Doncaster has recently been partially refurbished and more modernisations are supposed to be happening in the future. Stations are generally cleen and with good facilities, easy access for the disabled and generally stations are a pleasure to travel to and from.

TRAINS...
The trains are amongst the oldest on longer routes in Britain, some up to thirty years old, however all electric and some deisel trains have recently been refurbished to what is known as "mallard class". The trains are longer than most of the cross country voyagers offered by Virgin cross country and most meridians offered by Midland Mainline. The seats are comfortable and facilities are generally wonderful and clean. Trains can suffer from overcrowding at peak hours therefore I would always reccomend booking a seat before travel. Compared to most trains they look in very bad condition on the outer, but when you step on board you enter a different and all together much more luxurious world, much better than any other long distance trains I have encountered. The diesel trains that have not been done up however, are less than pleasent, and it has to be said that they look tired and old, and generally in need of a complete refurbishment or new trains altogether. They are reasonably comfortable, but looks are not good, and even in first class they look very run down. Where the logic was in refurbishing newer trains before older, I don't know, you would have to write to GNER and ask.

FACILITIES...
As mentioned above facilities are generalkly very good, and unlike some services the facilities are actually usable. the onboard shop is adequate and sells most of the things you culd ask for, however prices are extremely high, and buying food before you board is definately advisable.

STAFF...
Staff are usually very friendly and seem happy to help, with only very few exceptions. Both station staff and on board staff are aproachable and happy to help should you require advice, information or assistance. On my most recent journey outwards the staff were ignorent and uncaring yet on the return they were helpful and there was a very friendly trainee who was a little clumsy, no doubt due to nerves but very polite and friendly. He made a few mistakes but corrected them and always apologised. The outbound staff however on the problem journey above were a disgrace and really didn't seem to care.

CUSTOMER SERVICE...
I have now had to complain to GNER twice, before our last incident, due to a cancelled train from Doncaster to London Kings Cross. We waited several weeks for a reply (the person who dealt with the complaints was on holiday, If I had a pound (or lost a pound in weight *laughs*) I would be rich or skinny(I wish)). When we did recieve a reply we were given free first class tickets for three to anywhere on the GNER network, not bad for writing one letter, so we were all very pleased. Now, six weeks after complaining we have first class tickets again, but if they did not mess up in the first place there would be no need to actually issue the free ones.

A LAST NOTE...
I would like to say that all in all GNER have never before been a bad company however in light of recent events I would say they are no longer what they used to be. With all fairness the last problem was not through fault of their own, but the simple lack of information was my complaint. They are being bought out by national express in december, which may bring change. Just a shame to see them lose their great standards so soon before they leave. I would now say that if you do travel with them, you should probably not expect to much, however, if you have a problem complain:- it may take a long time for a reply, but it tends to pay off.

Thank you for reading and I hope you have found this review helpful. If you require any more information please leave me a comment and I will get back to you or update my review as soon as possible.