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Review summary

Created with AI, based on recent reviews

Looking at 168 reviews, most reviewers were unhappy with their experience overall. Consumers often struggled with severe delays, unexpected cancellations, and freezing temperatures inside the carriages during long winter journeys. Passengers frequently mentioned overcrowded trains with insufficient seating, alongside excessively high ticket prices that feel completely unreasonable for the poor service provided. Some people were satisfied with the exceptionally helpful staff members who went above and beyond to assist travellers and ensure a truly pleasant journey. Travellers additionally noted that specific routes featured frequent daily connections, very friendly employees, and relatively competitive fares compared to alternative transport options.

What people talk about most

Service

Users describe negative interactions with service, highlighting widespread frustration and disappointment... See more

Staff

Reviewers mention ambiguous feedback about staff, reflecting deeply contrasting experiences across different... See more

Location

People report ambiguous experiences with location, noting various journeys between cities like Edinburgh,... See more

Price

Clients share negative opinions on price, consistently describing ticket costs as overpriced and... See more

Customer service

Customers had ambiguous experiences with customer_service. While many reviewers praised helpful helpline... See more

Reviews shaping this summary

Rated 2 out of 5 stars

Capacity is atrocious. You know how many commuters are using your services yet consistently fail to provide sufficient carriages on main routes, whilst other times I practically get a carriage to my... See more

Rated 2 out of 5 stars

Arrived and boarded train at Waverley station in Edinburgh. After half an hour announcement to say to get off train as not going. No apology or explanation. Went back to concourse only to find an h... See more

Rated 2 out of 5 stars

One week, two service cancellations. No apparent contingency plans when rail service is cancelled suddenly. This evening, 3/12/2025, all trains out of Glasgow heading to Ayrshire cancelled (signal fa... See more

Rated 1 out of 5 stars

Sunday service August Edinburgh festival there are shows going beyond 1030pm and the last train North of Inverkeithing is 1028hrs.Whats a disgrace.I think one of the worst rail networks i know.During... See more


2.0

Poor

TrustScore 2 out of 5

1K reviews

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2.0

All reviews

(1,183)

157 reviews in the last 12 months

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Companies on Trustpilot aren't allowed to offer incentives or pay to hide reviews. Reviews are the opinions of individual users and not of Trustpilot. Read more

Rated 1 out of 5 stars

Boyycot

I called Scott rail and it was to book assistance over phone omg I have magor disability with trauma trust on telling her what I wanted three times my trust was wavering I told her I did not trust to get things right at end I ask her to send e mail so I could check things were right to ease my trauma e mail was wrong dates I knew she did not listen to busy reading of screen than actually listening to the person she threw phone down when I ask her to escalate complaint and on speaking to another person escalation never done had to come of phone as felt faint I had lovely girl who booked my rackets so professional named jazz please stop outsourcing it’s not working people are suffering

14 May 2026
Unprompted review
Rated 1 out of 5 stars

Watch out if you’re on the balloch…

Watch out if you’re on the balloch train in Scotland. This jo lady thinks she’s all that trying to kick you off the train. A guy before says to me and my 2 pals make sure you have money or jo will kick you off. I’m not having a laugh here but this jo lady is a werido that can suck my big fat MONEY. She’s sat there scanning our tickets that we have prior for returns. And didn’t even let us try to get a word in before saying they were already scanned. When I’ve already had the money in my hands.

11 May 2026
Unprompted review
Rated 1 out of 5 stars

Awful service to get cycles on… it’s a…

Awful service to get cycles on… it’s a real pain awful customer service at Pitlochry where an elderly customer had issues with bike ticket and was
in tears …the only help he could offer was phone Trainline or get a bus truely awful to watch

11 May 2026
Unprompted review
Rated 1 out of 5 stars

Dire. Avoid

We boarded at an unstaffed station, and no ticket inspector appeared on the train, so we had to stand in a huge queue on arrival at Glasgow. Train journey was smelly, busy and a dire experience.

2 May 2026
Unprompted review
Rated 1 out of 5 stars

Poor

Had some really good, helpful & honest staff on my journey in. Some really rude staff and uncaring staff on my journey back with appalling customer service. Actual trains themselves are a state & the company has really discriminatory practices-

Specifically on my way in (hour long train) there was no working toilet. Driver tried to fix it & staff member was very apologetic & quite honest saying it's because the door is broken as the company are running old stock/trains and they can't get parts for them any more.

On the way back, I had a bit of an issue with something & the staff member was rude/made it clear he did not care.

The discriminatory element relates to the ticketing. Essentially if you need to travel in the legacy Strathclyde area you can get an all day ticket for ALL travel in the area for £7.70 including the Subway in Glasgow, it's called a 'Roundabout Glasgow'. To put into context I live just 3 stops outside Strathclyde & so had to pay a return to get to the first Strathclyde station, that cost over £10 for just 3 stops / 15 or so minutes. HOWEVER the rest of the journey on the roundabout ticket with around 12 stops & another 45 minutes - still only cost the £7.70. As I say it then also covered all subway travel in Glasgow and would have covered any additional travel, indeed I could have got what would have been almost £100 worth of additional trains/travel on the west coast if I'd wanted to & went out to Ayr, Troon, Hekensburgh & Balloch, all for the original £7.70 ticket. However no equivalent exists for anyone else outside of Strathclyde, there's certainly no 'Lothians & Borders' or 'East lowland' equivalent.

So for some reason ScotRail seems to only care about the west coast. People in the north & east can basically just get on with it. I did wonder if it has something to do with the SNPs politicisation of ScotRail/transport & the fact they make it blatantly clear in every way they only care about their SNP voting heartlands in the west?

I genuinely hope we get a new government who basically scrap / overall ScotRail & we can start again.

27 April 2026
Unprompted review
Rated 5 out of 5 stars

This is the first time I have ever used…

This is the first time I have ever used Scotrail and station information was accurate, times of trains absolutely spot on, great journey, thank you. Only bit of feedback, please make sockets for USB the new smaller ones or wireless charging

26 April 2026
Unprompted review
Rated 2 out of 5 stars

Absolute shit show on a weekend full of…

Absolute shit show on a weekend full of drunks eating greasy kebabs and pizza throwing stuff around leaving tables a bloody mess no respect and this is from grown hairy arsed men not teenagers
I honestly feel so sorry for the staff I would post photos if I could because the state of the tables and seats with spilt booze is absolutely disgusting, these animals have no manners at all
So much for no alcohol on board

25 April 2026
Unprompted review
Rated 1 out of 5 stars

I can definitely tell why so many…

I can definitely tell why so many people prefer to use their car apart from catching a train in this country - this service is SOOO unreliable, you can literally get stuck forever in any destination without any option of getting back, I'm currently waiting for hours to get back from work and my only option is to get a 50£ uber - thank you SR

24 April 2026
Unprompted review
Rated 4 out of 5 stars

I was under distress and an woman woth…

I was under distress and an woman with a purple vest spoke to me along side a ticket inspector with absolutely no judgement.

Please can you provide an email so I can feed personal feedback to both members of staff.

I cant begin to explain how kind they were to me on my train arriving from partick to helensburgh at 20:00.

I would love the opportunity to feed back some positive feedback to them or their managers personally.

22 April 2026
Unprompted review
Rated 1 out of 5 stars

Absolutely disgusting company

Absolutely disgusting company. I will never use ScotRail after learning about the mass killing of pigeons in their stations.

These birds are not “pests,” they are living creatures trying to survive in a world humans have taken over. And it’s not just the shooting, it’s the destruction of nests and the killing of babies too. That is cruelty at its worst.

This isn’t management, it’s deliberate harm. Many birds don’t even die instantly, they’re left injured, terrified, and suffering.

The scale of this makes it even more disturbing. It’s planned, repeated, and treated as normal. There is no excuse for this.

A company that treats vulnerable animals like this shows a complete lack of compassion. It’s heart-breaking and shameful.

disgusting company.

17 April 2026
Unprompted review
Rated 2 out of 5 stars

Capacity is atrocious

Capacity is atrocious. You know how many commuters are using your services yet consistently fail to provide sufficient carriages on main routes, whilst other times I practically get a carriage to myself. Resource and route planning needs an overhaul!

Reliability is ok, not fabulous. Short distance ticket prices are ok, longer distances are very expensive. Trains vary wildly from quiet and comfortable to rickety and knackered. Staff are usually great, with one or two exceptions.

8 April 2026
Unprompted review
Rated 1 out of 5 stars

Head Office who take pride in obtaining a stingy and cheap reputation.

Ridiculous organisation. Have started to refuse any refunds or changes to tickets from the 1st of April 2026 without notifying the customer at the checkout. They'd better check whether they are still Scottish because there's no sense of duty left in whoever runs and owns this company. The staff on the trains are brilliant, couldn't praise them more. The new trains are clearly built for giants, couldn't see anything and too much leg room. Very uncomfortable, normal scotrail trains are perfect as they are. Unfortunate to see such a great service take pride in such a cheap and stingy reputation.

10 April 2026
Unprompted review
Rated 1 out of 5 stars

Mid at best

Expensive, more so since the scrapping of off peak fares. Overcrowded, usually late. Dreadful. That's about it...

11 April 2026
Unprompted review
Rated 1 out of 5 stars

How did standards drop this far?

Nairn to Inverness. Inverness to Edinburgh. Edinburgh to King’s Cross.

Over 4 hours on Inverness to Edinburgh. Buffet car closed. Trolley comes along. No sandwiches. Just crisps, sweets and chocolate bars. Well done ScotRail for contributing to the obesity crisis in the UK.

It’s disgusting that your service level is this poor. Cannot feed my 9 year old daughter lunch. You should be ashamed of yourselves.

Train is old. Toilet out of order. Disgusting smell wafting into the carriage. Draughty and cold.

11 April 2026
Unprompted review
Rated 5 out of 5 stars

Stuart of the sterling service

My husband and I visited Glasgow today to help an old friend following complications after surgery. We were very worried and anxious and mislaid some very important documents. An extremely helpful train guard named Stuart allayed our worries and helped us locate the missing documents. He went over and above with his customer service and restored our faith in human nature. He is a real asset to Scots Rail, who should be very proud of him. Thank you Stuart.

10 April 2026
Unprompted review
Rated 1 out of 5 stars

Terrible company

ScotRail let’s be honest is a total disgrace.

In other countries around the world you get nice clean trains that aren’t expensive and on time but not here. Over priced, unreliable and most of them look like they haven’t been cleaned or hoovered for about 20 years.

Now they have the cheek to start this £10 minimum pricing. Absolute disgrace. Unfortunately if you need to get the train most of the time you don’t have a choice but to use ScotRail.

There customer service is also a shambles be better phoning someone’s granny for advice.

10 April 2026
Unprompted review
Rated 1 out of 5 stars

Train was fully packed to the point…

Train was fully packed to the point doors were blocked and all corridors were full of people standing, train ticket man still allowing more people to get on the train absolutely ridiculous. Train was actually so hot to the point the windows steamed up and there was condensation on all surfaces.

9 April 2026
Unprompted review
Rated 1 out of 5 stars

Disgrace

Tried to get tickets yesterday, all trains were "full" and I was unable to process payment for any trains or any times . Today all trains are available for double the price.

Absolute disgrace and taking your customers for fools.

Message received, better take the car.

9 April 2026
Unprompted review

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