National Express Train Service

...for, it seems that with national express you wait forever, and get next to nothing!

CONCLUSION
A very good train company if you're not travelling on an old decrepit diesel, some delays-most can't be avoided, customer service is…seemingly non-existant but I'll give you more information when we get a reply. All in all a very hit and miss company.

Thanks for reading, I hope you have found this review helpful and ...
...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 ... more

*please bear in mind that I wrote this review on July 20th, but have only just uploaded it*

Since the change from 'Great North Eastern Railways'(GNER) to 'National Express East Coast'(NXEC) I have made two return journeys with NXEC plus a further single journey (the return journey with Hull Trains). I felt now would be a good time to take my old GNER review and update it with a brand new review of NXEC, however, I will leave my old review of GNER at the bottom for those who wish to read it.

ROUTES

NXEC 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>Edinburgh (with some services to Glasgow, Inverness and Aberdeen).
The routes are generally good and are much faster than the midland mainline (from Yorkshire), however to and from Scotland are generally slower than the west coast mainline.

STATIONS

The stations are mostly pleasant with few exceptions. Stations such as Doncaster were refurbished and modernised before NXEC took over. Currently work is taking place at King's Cross Station to modernise it and get it looking a lot better, as let's face it…at the minute it looks like a rather poorly maintained though very large shed, it is dark, dingy and very unpleasant. Also, NXEC has promised to improve other stations such as Wakefield Westgate, once a very nice station, I remember using the station as a young kid and thinking it was nice but it has been allowed to fall into a state of general…rubbishness! All in all though…not too bad.

STAFF

All in all the staff are really really good; they are very helpful and friendly as well as well presented. The staff, in my opinion, are amongst the best when it comes to rail travel in Britain.

PUNCTUALITY

Generally, punctuality is not too bad however it is not great either. There are some delays but that is to be expected, just make sure you get to the station for your train on time and just in case anything does happen leave plenty of time to get to where you need to be from the station you get off at. They are however, the least reliable train operator in the UK according to recent statistics, however much of this can not be helped and is through no fault of their own, for instance the last time I was in Doncaster several trains were delayed by over 3 hours due to floods, and I have had incidents where power cables have caused problems.

TRAINS

It's the trains where things all start going a little bit more pear shaped, there are amazingly great trains, good trains, bad trains, and downright disgusting trains running in the UK-the problem with NXEC is that they run a combination of the two extremities. There are two train types run by NXEC, the 'intercity 125' or HST (diesel) and the 'intercity 225' (electric). The 225s have all been upgraded to what is known as 'Mallard Class' and are really great. They are good to travel on and despite being quite old are comparable to new trains and offer unrivalled comfort compared to other train operator's trains. They have comfortable seating, WiFi, look modern, and you get the idea, they are nice to travel on. The 125s however are a mixed bunch-these are currently being upgraded to Mallard Class with only a minority already refurbished. Those that are refurbished have also been fitted with new engines (source: Wikipedia) to increase their Life Span. I had the pleasure of travelling on one of these from Doncaster to London yesterday and it was wonderful. In general these are just like the electric trains. The other side however is where it goes wrong. The 125s that have not been refurbished are an absolute disgrace. I had the displeasure of travelling back from London to Doncaster on one of these yesterday on the 20:00 service, which according to their timetable online was supposed to be an electric train. We had checked this before travelling and were looking forward to a nice comfortable and relaxing journey back home however we didn't get that at all. We were plonked on an old decrepit 125 which was in appalling condition. The seats were brown and the seat cushions-you could feel springs through them!!! My brothers seat cushion was loose and falling off. Mine and my brother's headrests were missing (a problem which many of the seats had-the only person in our group of three to be lucky enough to have one was my dad) meaning the seat was not shaped properly for the body and was very very uncomfortable to sit on. As apposed to a soft cushion for your head there was a flat and very hard seat back, the whole seat back was hard but the part where the head rest (which is just like a cushion) was missing was hardest and as I'm sure you can imagine was very uncomfortable to rest your head on, more uncomfortable than the springs you could feel! On top of all that the tables were in an appalling state too and the brown leather arm rest covers were literally falling to pieces, I'll upload a picture of that and where the headrests were missing for you to see. Now it's time for the bit that you may have trouble believing…All of this was in, none other than first class!!! Is this what can be called first class?!!! If so I think the people at NXEC need to sharpen their thinking, ok, admittedly they are in the process of refurbishing them but in the state that that train was in, it shouldn't have been allowed to carry passengers, surely? The seats were actually painful to sit on! Anyway, I've finished my ranting and raving about the carriages now, but if you're travelling with NXEC check the timetable online and try to get on a train that is electric, the timetable can be found under 'travel information' at nationalexpresseastcoast.com . Saying that, the train we came back on yesterday was supposed to be electric and ended up being a diesel, so it may not help at all!

CUSTOMER SERVICE
My dad has wrote to complain about the journey we had back, however, after more than 8 weeks the reply was less than satisfactory and said virtually nothing. The letter we recieved explained that there had been a fault on an earlier train and that was it-totally neglected that an electric train could surely have been used as there were at least two others in the station at the time, one that pulled out of the station before ours with no lights on and no passengers seemingly to go to a depot. In the days of GNER customer service was a case of wait quite a while and get what you waited for, it seems that with national express you wait forever, and get next to nothing!

CONCLUSION
A very good train company if you're not travelling on an old decrepit diesel, some delays-most can't be avoided, customer service is…seemingly non-existant but I'll give you more information when we get a reply. All in all a very hit and miss company.

Thanks for reading, I hope you have found this review helpful and please feel free to leave me a comment if you need any more information.

THE ORIGINAL REVIEW OF GNER

Ok, before I begin, I would like to give you a section from a letter I wrote to GNER in July, about a journey from Doncaster 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 could they not have replied when they first received the complaint?! Apparently they had had "a recent increase in the number of complaints" and if that is their customer service 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 Rail Intercity, 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>Edinburgh (with some services to Glasgow, Inverness and Aberdeen).
The routes are generally good and are much faster than the midland 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 clean 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 diesel 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 recommend 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 pleasant, 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 generally very good, and unlike some services the facilities are actually usable. The onboard shop is adequate and sells most of the things you could ask for, however prices are extremely high, and buying food before you board is definitely 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 approachable and happy to help should you require advice, information or assistance. On my most recent journey outwards the staff were ignorant 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*) for every time I that excuse has been used I would be rich (or skinny (I wish)). When we did receive 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. 

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