“Awful customer service.
Return journey cancelled, no more trains that day. No Hull Trains staff at Kings Cross to assist. Not able to use ticket to travel on LNER.
3 choices.
a) camp out at Kings Cross until next day
b) book hotel in London and claim from Hull Trains.
c) buy tickets for LNER service (more expensive).
I opted for option c) and claimed the refund from Trainline for tickets on cancelled Hill Trains service. As the LNER tickets were more expensive I tried to claim the extra cost from Hull Trains and came across a bunch of numpties who either didn’t bother to read my emails or can’t read.
Apart from Karl and Nicola, who I spoke to and were both as helpful as they could be, the rest of the many people I had contact with seemed to lack any common sense. Every time I spoke to someone a different person would then respond with an email and when I replied to the sender yet another person would respond - with the exception of Helen who doesn’t even bother to reply to emails!
Aftet 2 weeks of emails bouncing back and forth and sending copies of the original tickets as requested, the most recent email from another numpty at Hull Trains advised me that they cannot compensate me for the extra cost of the tickets I bought - as a result of their service being cancelled at short notice - because the (overpaid) driver was ill - because I hadn’t bought the tickets directly from them but had bought them through Trainline.
Mr ‘Numpty’ suggested that I ask Trainline or LNER to compensate me for the extra cost of the more expensive tickets that I had to buy because Hull Trains cancelled their service at short notice!!
Needless to say that I won’t be booking a ticket with Hull Trains in the future. I’ll pay more and book LNER or choose an alternative route/train operator e.g. via Melton Mowbray and Leicester.
Based on this experience with Hull Trains Customer Service (not a very appropriate description) I would definitely NOT recommend booking on any of their service, if there is an alternative service available with another train company.”
“Well done Hull Trains. I paid for first class travel to hull to relax and ponder over the remembrance weekend and I find 18 people crammed into the centre aisle of the first class carriage. This is not good service I couldn’t even leave my seat to go to the toilet. Surely the company just needs to count the number of seats and issue that amount of seats. Answers are required please”
“Paid for first class,train bursting at seams ,people stud up all way doen ailes even in first class,nothing to drink or eat and paid a lot of money for tickets
Absolutely disgusting”
“No food in standard a bare minimum cold in first no vegan options no decent hot options stank of toilet no staff or passengers wearing mask to protect the vulnerable no first class lounge to social distance hull or London rip off of captive clientele dreadful advert for Hull”
“Hull trains are worst operator in uk. Trying to book a ticket and they charge me for ticket but they got technical problem and didn’t send me a any confirmation just took money from account. No I don’t have money on account and any message from them.Be aware and don’t but anything for this useless website. Hopefully covid gonna get all of them 😂”
“Very basic service. Only coffee, tea or water. Choice of sausage or bacon sandwich. Apparently the reduced menu is due to Covid restrictions but this doesn't stop other operators offering a full service at present.”
“Why on earth are you not serving alcoholic beverages? First class ticket prices without the G&T on the return journey? Last week I was told we'd be back to normal this week??! I'll switch to LNER to be sage on Wednesday and Thursday, thanks anyway.”
“Return from Kings Cross to Doncaster FIRST CLASS
Firstly I had a sprint to catch the train as they put platform up 5 minutes before due to leave. I'm disabled.
Coffee was disgusting
Food offering limited and was disgusting
My teeth rattled from Kings Cross to Doncaster.
How can Hull Trains warrant charging extra?
Went down to Kings Cross from Doncaster on Virgin. Excellent coffee and food and SMOOTH journey. Worth the extra money to travel First Class!
Hull Trains. If you cant provide a First Class service dont offer it. Disgraceful RIP off!”
“Worst First Class service I've ever known. The carriages are dirty and poorly maintained - with the rubber trim coming off the windows and swinging around. There's a constant repetitive whine I've never experienced on a train before. The ride is very shaky, not smooth at all.
The coffee is truly disgusting and while there's a nice selection of biscuits the food is awful. There is no alcohol on offer.
Service is just alright, staff don't say hello.”
“Early morning train out of London to Hull on 10/03 cancelled - no email notification sent by the company or other attempt to make contact. All passengers forced to take a slow local train to Peterborough, and then a two hour+ bus journey to Hull from there. There are several East Coast trains running that would get us to Hull much faster, but the company refuses to allow us to use these services (despite the cancellation being entirely their responsibility). I would recommend paying a bit more to use the more reliable East Coast services to Hull (even where this means a change in Doncaster).”
“I ended up with 2 tickets for the same journey due to getting an error message on website saying my transaction could not be completed and to try again later. Several attempts later I was successful, however one of the previous attempts had also gone through. I rang to explain this but was refused a refund. Very poor customer service”
“I have very mixed views about Hull Trains having used their service for a number of years without any problems.
I recently needed to travel from Hull to London to attend an event. I purchased the tickets on-line (two singles as it was cheaper) and they arrived in the post a few days later. Unfortunately I needed to be in London about 8 hours earlier than I planned, so wanted to change my booking. I phoned Customer Services and was told that I could change the booking on-line myself and was given instructions on how to do this. When I tried to change the booking, all that was available was full price First Class tickets. I phoned Customer Services again and was told that there may be a glitch on the website and to try again. Having tried a second (and third and fourth) time, I was still unable to change the booking. I called Customer Services again, only to be told the same thing about being able to change the booking myself. I eventually managed to make the person understand that it was not possible to change the booking to another Standard Class ticket, only First Class, which I did not want, and that there were still cheaper advance tickets shown on the public website. He apologised and told me that there must be a problem with the website, which he could not fix and that he could not help me with my problem and that I would have to go to a station with my ticket to change it. I went into Hull station and obtained a ticket for an earlier train, paying the difference in price and an admin fee of £10 for doing so.
Unfortunately the train I traveled on broke down (incidentally causing chaos on the East Coast main line for the rest of the day). The staff on the train were excellent, keeping passengers informed of progress (or lack of it). What was supposed to be a direct train, eventually arrived in the next station and terminated there. I had to board another train (packed due to the extra passengers and knock on delays). I arrived in London over 2 hours later than planned.
To add insult to injury, the return journey was also delayed by half an hour due to a possible fire on another train.
I submitted a claim for compensation for the delayed journeys - requesting full refund for the first journey and half fare refund for the second. I submitted my claim via email on 9 November. Liability for payment of compensation was accepted in a return email on 17 November, however the amount appeared incorrect, so I asked for clarification, sending my reply email on 18 November. I had to wait until 24 November for the second reply, explaining how the refund was calculated. I felt that the amount offered was incorrect as it did not refund the additional cost of the purchase of the earlier ticket, just the cost of the original cheap on-line advance ticket - leaving me £41 short of what I thought I should receive. Needless to say, I have asked for the amount to be recalculated, with an explanation of why I think this is so. I sent that email on 24 November and have not, as yet, received any further communications from Hull Trains.
I have found the on-board staff to be helpful, polite and efficient. The trains themselves are usually clean and run reasonably to time. The frequency of service, train times and journey times between Hull and London are quite convenient and have improved over the years. The website is reasonably easy to use and advance ticket purchases usually give significant savings. What seems to let Hull Trains down, is their Customer Services when things go wrong. It seems that they are unable to put things right in a timely manner.”
“The train to Kings cross was cancelled - the only way we knew about this was the small electronic information screen. Nothing came over the tanoy system to let us know the next train to Doncaster would allow us to take a connecting Virgin train to Kings Cross. We were lucky, two women with suitcases who had arrived and managed to have time to speak to the ticket office were able to tell a few people that we should be able to get on a Virgin Train from Doncaster. The ticket collector on the Hull to Doncaster train was short tempered and we had to ask him twice to be clear that we could get a connection, we were told only one Virgin train would take us, at a later connecting time.
Thankfully, VIRGIN TRAINS SAVED THE DAY. They had six representatives on the platform at Doncaster and told us to get on ANY Virgin train coming through Doncaster to Kings Cross no extra charge - there was NO ONE FROM HULL TRAINS TO EXPLAIN WHAT WAS GOING ON.
Very good PR by Virgin. Can't wait until they start running more trains out of Hull.
I won't rush to book Hull Trains again, I will seek another provider first.”
“Last month myself and my partner travelled to London and was delayed for some time due to signal failure. We sat on the train for over an hour on the flatform with no announcement as to what was happening. After an hour we were told to try and get on another train that was due to set off (which we did) we didn't have allocated seats so had to sit apart also even though this train went straight into out final destination station (kingscross) we were told that we had to change trains at Doncaster and get on another train to London. Before getting to Doncaster the train then had mechanical issues so we waited for 45mins outside of Doncaster. Once we arrived into Doncaster station we got off the train as directed. We were then told on the platform that we could get back on the train and don't need to change (which we then did) then once back on the train we were told to get off (once again) as the train would not be leaving due to mechanical faults. We then got off the train (again) and onto another one that took us to London......2.5 hours late! We missed a close relatives entrance to their suprise birthday party and a friend
(who we were sharing accommodation with) had to wait in kingscross for 2 hours due to our delay! Not happy to say the least! ????”
“Return journey @ 18.50 London - Bridlington via Hull (connecting to the last train to Bridlington) booked as an Advance for 18 Nov was a total disaster as my train was cancelled from Kings Cross and I received no help whatsoever from First Hull Trains at the time I needed it. Booking Reference 43H23KN5.
Apparently there were problems on the line near Newark much earlier that day and despite having my email address from when I signed in and booked NO ATTEMPT was made to contact me about possible disruption to my journey let alone to tell me what my alternatives were and what I should do. My booked train was cancelled out of Kings Cross and I had no help or information at Kings Cross to tell me what to do. There were no First Hull Trains staff present or any advice point for First Hull Trains customers. Virgin EC do a much better job.
You have my email address and use it to request surveys but not to provide customer service. I was told later there was some sort of alert system I could sign up to via your website but I was unable to find it let alone sign up to it - this still begs the point WHY SHOULD I NEED TO? You already had my email address and my itinerary. Virgin EC do a much better job at this.
First Hull Trains needs to sort its customer services out and join up the dots between all of these systems, apps etc. and provide something seamless like some of the airlines manage to do. Professionalism is sadly lacking.
Apparently I can claim compensation if my train is delayed, how do I claim if it's cancelled at the point of origin???”
“My train on the 8th November was cancelled. Fortunately Virgin Trains accepted our tickets and looked after us extremely well. For the first time we booked first class tickets and weren't we pleased as there weren't nearly enough seats to accommodate all the Hull Train passengers. The worst thing was when we were told a driver hadn't turned up for work and there wasn't a replacement one. On the journey down to London on the 6th November we were booked on a Virgin Train but our train couldn't leave York as a Hull Train had broken down near Doncaster. Again a frustrating journey.”
