Northern Spirit

Northern Spirit hold the train franchise, believe it or not from the name, up north. They offer services as far south as Sheffield and travel to places like Wakefield, Leeds, Barnsley, Pontefract etc... I often use a Northern Spirit service or range of services approximately 4 times a month. It is normally on the 20 minute journey between Wakefield and Pontefract, however I have travelled between Sheffield and Pontefract on a Northern Spirit service, ...
...I have very rarely seen Northern Spirit trains late. They, in my experiance, are incredibly punctual very rarely arriving more than 2 minutes late than expected. The staff are very friendly and there fares are very respectable as well, allowing travel in Yorkshire very cheap. There is also the oppurtunity to purchase a Metro Card, which will see a cut in fares. I however don't possess one of these as I use a Railcard for more wide spread use. The ...

GraWar 02.05.2001 · Read full review
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Review of Northern Spirit

...right. The standard of Northern Spirit trains is not very high but the service does have good points which I think need pointing out. Over the two years I used the service on a daily basis I noticed the staff were very good with disabled travellers and most of them stop to ask the many mothers who use the service need a hand with pushchairs, etc. I mention it because this is a point that has been picked up in the criticisms of the national rail ...
...the 'reasonable' part of the Northern Spirit route. I found the service reliable, frequent and with the use of the teen travel monthly ticket I used, relatively cheap. On the occasions when I am in the region I have no quarms about the service as it eases the parental taxi burden and is quicker than getting them to drive! It's still cheap for a day out. I think for a regional rail service in an area where the Newcastle metro is being given high priority ...

lucypenman 30.01.2001 · Read full review
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Review of Northern Spirit

...service is one run by Northern Spirit - I implore you to go a bit earlier and find an alternative bus service. Today I had the audacity to expect the train to run to time out of Leeds. It did not, in fact it was 40 minutes late after the first train that turned up supposedly "broke down" at the station. However, this same train seemed to have no trouble pulling into the station laden with passengers and similarly had little trouble in pulling out ...
...I shall be writing to Northern Spirit in an attempt to get back my £4.50 train fare. Luckily, as I am only working away from my office for today and tomorrow, I will only have to endure this hellish experience one more time. Really best avoided! ...

andyev 22.02.2001 · Read full review
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Review of Northern Spirit

...believe that they just use these trains because it is shorter distances, because when I lived in Scotland, and used to do the same length of journey, we had fantastic trains. So c'mon Northern Spirit, let the passengers travel in comfort, or they may just take to the buses. ...

georgie 14.08.2000 · Read full review
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Review of Northern Spirit

...I travel on loads of Northern Spirit trains because im in Yorkshire a lot. I find myself using Northern Spirit between Sheffield sometimes and onto Wakefield and Pontefract. For starters what can I say about punctuality? Well on the whole apart from the once when it was 15 mins late, I find them to always leave the station within 3 or 4 minutes of the time they should do although most of the time they are pretty punctual. Right now for the staff, ...
...a slight failing point for Northern Spirit. My local operator, Central Trains have invested a fair amount in new trains and now have a decent amount of new trains operating. I havent seen any new Northern Spirit trains, in fact they are pretty old from what I have travelled on and seen. Although they are always clean inside I cant help but think they are a bit rickety. I dont know if it is just the Wakefield - Pontefract route that I travel on most, ...

CyrixDes 06.05.2001 · Read full review
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Review of Northern Spirit

I'm not a big traveller, so when I had the chance to go to London for the weekend, I jumped at the chance. The ticket booking was done by a friend of mine, and the time they took to arrive was OK. After ordering, they were here within two days. Although £41 for a return ticket is expensive, it is well worth it. Although I live in Hartlepool, getting to Darlington isn't a problem, as there are bus and train links. Darlington station was probably ...
...station, it's a mess. There are very few facilities. Anyway, the train arrived on time, and I found my way into my reserved seat. The journey was excellent. The train was quiet, and during the journey, a snack trolley and ice cream man went past. The prices were quite expensive, so I didn't buy anything. 3 hours later, I was at King's Cross. For someone who has spent his life travelling mainly by car and coach, three hours was an amazing time. ...

Scribbler 18.09.2000 · Read full review
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Review of Northern Spirit

...Esk valley railway run by Northern Spirit railways needs more trains !. At present there are only four weekday trains each way along the route and Northern Spirit should be increasing this by now . It has been like this for ten years and they don't seem to be bothered about putting on an early morning train from Whitby to Middlesborough to get people to work . The earliest you can get into Middlesborough from the East coast resort of Whitby at ...

Gardenex 06.10.2000 · Read full review
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Northern Spirit are running trains on the Skipton-Leeds-Bradford-Ilkley lines that are the same trains I used to run around on as a child in Liverpool..they are some 30 or 40 years old and frequently break down.. People who do not live in the Metro area pay top fares for shoddy unreliable transport.. Trains to Carlisle on the famous Leeds-Settle-Carlisle railway are inadequate, rarley are there refreshments on board and usually at peak times overcrowded, ...
...pity we are stuck with Northern Spirit as the only frequent and regular train operator... Perhaps one day they will upgrade the rolling stock on the line, with 21st Century rolling stock, and not stock that is but a year or two away from entering York Railway Museum... Come on Northern Spirit get your act together !!.... Since February this year (2001) Northern Spirit or should I now call them Arriva have introduced these new train sets on the ...

Dalesman 22.08.2000 (15.07.2001) · Read full review
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Review of Northern Spirit

...January seventeenth 20001 rail operator Northern Spirit are to increase their fares again . Meanwhile the service if it runs at all continues to get worse . How dare they increase their fares after the shambles of the past few months . I think they should be reducing their ticket prices as a gesture of goodwill not putting them up . I heard on the news that another train operator Great North Eastern Railways are freezing their prices for the coming ...

galls 02.01.2001 (29.01.2001) · Read full review
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Review of Northern Spirit

Northern Spirit? More like Northern Ghost! I had the unfortunate pleasure of this company (now renamed Arriva trains Northern) since they started to run trains. If you need to catch one of these I would start walking because the chances are you will get there before the train does. They are hardly on time, no announcements on why they are late no nothing. The spent millions of pounds on some trains to run on the Airedale and Wharfdale lines (class ...
...fun. Dispite the air conditioning and other extra features which, if the government want people to use public transport, train companies need to think about. However when they got these trains instead of sorting out problems before allowing them to come into service they decided to wait. The first time I went on one of these new trains the electronic doors wouldn't open so no-one could get on or off the train. That really did annoy me because I was ...

DeanLambert 07.06.2001 · Read full review
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Review of Northern Spirit