Great Western Railway Reviews 

None of my recent journeys have been anywhere near as scheduled. Today, for example, I paid an expensive ticket for a journey that was spontaneously cancelled after one stop, followed by the excuse that "we can't just buy taxis for everyone". On the return journey the service was again spontaneously cancelled after it having commenced.

Late, hapless and too shouty

I am constantly surprised by the unreliable, unacceptable service provided by FGW. I have had so many poor experiences on FGW trains that I'm considering writing a book, but I fear that no one would believe it possible that all the things featured really happened.......I struggle to believe it myself. I am used to trains being late, or cancelled, that's normal with FGW, but the dangerous levels of overcrowding needs to be stopped. The staff (not all) require customer service training (Lessons in politeness) . The rudeness of some of them is just astounding, it's cringeworthy sometimes.

I am also perplexed by the 'terrorism threat advice' which is repeatedly played throughout journeys and on station platforms. The advice is to tell a member of staff if you see a passenger behaving suspiciously or see a suspicious item of luggage. This would seem sensible if it were not for the fact that the trains are so crowded and the baggage racks so overflowing, no one actually knows who owns any of the bags anyway and it's often impossible to see your own luggage when people are standing all the way down the aisles. With luggage blocking the aisles and doors, it would be impossible to safely evacuate some of the carriages in the event of an emergency, terror related or not. If and when the expected terrorist event happens, I'd be interested to know how any of the staff plan to get to my carriage to assist, or perhaps they don't........perhaps there is no evacuation plan. The air conditioning is currently not working on many of the Paddignton to Penzance services and it's been broken for over a year because I recall in last year's heatwave feeling ill due to the lack of air in the carriage. With sealed windows and an illegal number of people in the carriage, I wasn't the only one struggling for the five hour journey. The refrigeration was broken on one service I used this week so the buffet car was closed, overheated and no chance of a drink is a bad combination on a long journey. The wifi is regularly non existent in one of the carriages on this service and has been broken for quite some time, so passengers have to come into the next door carriage to access internet. Seat reservations are ignored by some passengers but there are no staff on hand to address this. The rolling stock on the Barnstaple to Exeter line should have been disposed of a very long time ago. On my last journey from Barnstaple, the train doors locked themselves shut in one of the two carriages which formed the overcrowded train. The guard could be overheard phoning for help on the platform at Crediton while I tried to assist a lady with a pushchair through too small a door into the other carriage so that she could disembark. I told her not to panic as the train driver was standing on the platform, but she was uoset due to the difficulty she was having and was worried about being stuck on the train with her small children.
The toilets on stations are frequently closed at 5.pm or not open before 9.a.m........why???? Rush hour commuters still need the loo after a long journey. Considering the exorbitant fares, improvements really do need to be made as a matter of urgency.
What regard is there for the elderly, infirm or disabled passengers? none.
The most recent fiasco; a weekend of no trains due to staff watching the World Cup, was the final straw for me. Does FGW not have an HR policy that identifies minimum staff requirements for a basic level of operation? What would happen if the Police or the Army or the Fire Brigade or Ambulance Service went AWOL for a weekend and simply played a recorded message telling people there would be no service because staff had not come in due to the good weather and the World Cup? Is it me, or is something not o.k. about the way FGW operates services? Sadly, travelling from Penzance to London, they have the monopoly - so I shall have to continue to travel with FGW forever. Arghhhhhh!!!!!!!

I travelled from Reading to Penzance with three grandchildren between the ages of three to eleven on July 8th. I booked three tickets on line using family railcard but the site didn't allow to book ticket for three old, who ostensibly travels free.
Concerned that there might not be a seat I spoke to a Trainline representative a week later , who explained if there were a shortage of seats he would have to sit on my knee . I decided to buy him a ticket for 5 hr journey but I couldn't use the family railcard without buying another ticket for myself so I manfully paid £28 for the three year old's ticket.
Children boarded armed with lunch and water. And then the fun began: no air conditioning, apart from in First Class, and when I went to purchase more water as we all began to wilt they had sold out and we would have to wait for stocks to be replenished at the next station .There is uproar when we hear of owners leaving their pets in enclosed vehicles without water but GWR showed very little regard for this 71 year old grandmother , her three grandchildren under 10 and the many other passengers on this ghastly journey.

Caught the 9.10 Southampton Central to Newport the train was formed of two carriages. It was packed standing room only, I booked a seat but it was not the type of train for reserved seats. Although toilets on the train and drinks facilities unable to access either due to the over crowding on the train. People were trying to get off at stops between Southampton and Bath with great difficulty as more people were getting on. It amazes me that such a small train should be put on its a very busy route.

In general the staff are great. However the company needs a good slap. My journey over the last month had over 12 delays of over 30 min, the longest was 2 hrs. When I put a claim in, I got told they do not compensate season ticket holders. Outrageous. Well my stations don't have gates so nonmore ticket buying for me. I will risk the £20 fine for Sabrina £1,000s

Absolutely useless, constant problems trying to do very simple tasks like booking tickets. Tried 4 times to reset my account password on their website and it refuses to do it. Also refuses to accept certain email addresses for no reason. After applying for a refund in March I finally got the money SEVEN months later in October. There was a small issue getting it through but none of the staff bothered to sort it out properly, just stuck it in the slightly difficult pile and left it until I had to chase over and over again. Unfortunately stuck with them as the main train operator living in the South West. Absolute joke, terrible customer service and awful Interface through their website.

The biggest shower of s**t excuse for a railway "service" I've ever seen. If other companies in other industries routinely operated with this level of incompetence, the economy would collapse. In a certain sense they're the most reliable company in the world - come rain or shine, you can always count on them to be late.

On the plus side there's a business opportunity here for the entrepreneurially inclined, since there's a distinct gap in the market for a train service that actually runs on time.

Hopeless. Regardless of their actual service which is inevitably untimely and overly crowded, they never sent me £50 worth of tickets and I have yet to receive a refund over 4 months later. Essentially don't bother contacting their customer service as you will be ignored or lied to repeatedly. Surely it can't be that hard for a large company to offer an adequate level of customer service?

Trains always delayed. Staff not helpful. High ticket prices.

Late most of the time or canceled.

Getting refunds for canceled trains is next to impossible.

Shocking service. When you have to wait longer to buy a ticket than the train journey itself something has to be asked. My journey by train is relatively short 20 minutes. The ticket booth has taken well over 30 minutes. The price you charge you should either invest in ticket machines at every station, put more staff on for your ticket stations at Reading or place a system in place to allow commuters to pass by the barriers to buy tickets. So many people will be late today due to a lack of management.

The people that work for GWR are nice, my gf and i wanted to do the real ale trail and the ticket man said "you need the cornwall ranger" which turns out to be far cheaper than any return ticket you can buy. The first ticket collector that saw the ticket said "good luck" and we found out why.....for the second time running gwr let us down....truro the station that hates trains managed to cancel the 16:25 .....then received a 2 carriage train to replace the cancelled 8 carriage train and to also pick up the people it would have normally picked up had there not been the cancelled train. The replacement bus service stopped at only 2 locations....neither of which were any good for the majority of the passengers and i finally got home after finding out it takes the best part of 4 hours to travel from truro to liskeard

in two years of trying to use the train service and trying to catch 4 trains in total i have had a total of 6 failures and 3 successes........as a rebrand i think gwr should drop the g from their name unless they are willing to add "ly disappointing" to the name too!

On the upside, the staff are quite nice and no one was nasty to them, it is hardly their fault now is it?

21st June 2017,18.03pm sat on the Paddington to Penzance train on the hottest day for 40 years and the trains air con doesn't work! Going to pass out in a minute! No announcement or apologises! Ticket cost an extortionate amount of £100 for what...... a journey from hell!!! Disgusting GWR!!!!

A disgrace. A first class ticket to hell. If GWR cant maintain trains they should remove them from service. 4 hours on a train with no fans operating in a carriage without openable windows during a heatwave is nothing short of deliberately puting company profits before the health and welfare of passengers and staff. The staff did bring round water but even drinks were running short. Not good enough in 2017. Had it not been for the dilegence of the staff ensuring people were hydrated there would have undoubtedly been problems.

Was travelling forth from Aylesbury to Gloucester and back when the unthinkable happened on my return trip. After getting onto the train at Gloucester towards Paddington I somehow dropped or lost my ticket in the carriage.

I searched all over but could not find it and the train was about to leave. I spoke to the staff who said to stay on the train and they would sort it on the way.

Spoke to a ticket inspector called Christopher who was very helpful and understanding. After assuring me that I could get to London, he then later found my missing ticket which another passenger had picked up and for some reason kept on their seat.

He could have easily charged me the fare again or they could have kicked me off the train but he did everything he could to help me and saved me having to buy another train ticket from London to Aylesbury.

At the same time, a family in the same carriage had gotten on the wrong train. I heard the same ticket inspector give them the instructions on how to get back to their destination (with only a 30 minute delay) as well as a note for any inspector who questioned them along the way.

1st class customer service. Christopher deserves a raise.

Train also had free Wi-Fi.

After missing my train from bristol parkway to cardiff I was very upset as I had travelled from Ireland (and my flight was also delayed!!) subsequently I had to wait 1.5 hours until the next train as it was roughly 10:30pm. Tanya was the lady working in bristol parkway at the time and she looked after me by bringing me hot drinks and food! As if this wasn't nice enough of her, she also arranged for me to be put in first class on my train to cardiff. She was so lovely and made my experience much better than what it would have been without her.

Took over 12 weeks plus numerous phone calls & emails to get a refund after they cancelled trains to Bath and could provide no alternative road transport last November. Didn't even provide an apology nor any compensation for our consequential losses.

One door of train at slough was full, so we attempted to move from one door to another and in the time that took (15 seconds) the train had left and the conductor was subsequently loud and unpleasant

As the review title states and many have stated, they're absolutely appalling. Their PR will probably read these and do absolutely nothing and smile to themselves, because the truth is, some journeys are not provided by any other train company.

Being from London, I know travel can be expensive, but some of these prices are extortionate. And their staff, who are representatives of the company, are rude and love to harass. Truth is, these men and women are probably really nice people out of their jobs, which begs the question if their rudeness, harshness and harassing behaviour is demanded of them. Because they simply are b##ches and douchbags (pardon the language).

Recently I felt so bad for a fellow passenger. We both used railcards for our tickets. Mine was a young person railcard and theirs was something called job centre railcard. See I know this because the ticket inspector practically shouted it to the whole train to hear...It was not needed. And to make things worst, apparently her Jobcentre railcard had expired by a few days, as the lady tried to explain, and I'm assuming she hadn't the time to renew it. So the inspector made more of a scene by asking the woman to put down her name on paper without even giving the lady a chance to properly explain and decided that she should confiscate the woman's railcard. It was just so emotional...I felt so bad for the lady ...But for some reason, the GWR staff felt this was appropriate. Sad really.