Trainline: most-reported complaints
Automated analysis of 1,867 public Trustpilot reviews published 2026-07-26 to 2026-09-26. TrustScore 4.1 from 155,043 total reviews — see the Trustpilot page. Quick answer: is Trainline legit? Issues below reflect what reviewers reported, not findings of wrongdoing.
Reviewers most often report issues with poor core service, citing examples such as significant delays and overcrowded trains. Customer support is another frequent complaint, with users describing interactions as unhelpful or difficult to understand. Additionally, problems with the app and accounts are commonly noted, including instances where the application directed users to incorrect stations, rendering their tickets invalid.
How to reach Trainline
These are the contact details Trainline publishes on its Trustpilot profile, as of our last check on 2026-09-27 — phone 0333 202 2222, email [email protected], address 120 Holborn, London, EC1N 2TD, GB.
The company claimed its Trustpilot profile on 2014-05-15, uses Trustpilot’s paid features, uses Trustpilot’s AI-assisted replies, and last replied to a negative review on 2026-09-25. Trustpilot ranks it 2 of 4 in Train Ticket Agency. We last checked this profile on 2026-09-27 and found 168 new reviews. These are facts Trustpilot publishes about the profile, as of our last harvest.
Companies House: TRAINLINE PLC (no. 11961132), active, incorporated 2019 (7.4 years); next accounts due 2027-08-31, last accounts filed 2026-08-18. 9 current officers (17 on record historically), 1 resignation in the last 24 months; 85 filings in the last 12 months (315 filings on record). official record — public register facts, not an indicator of wrongdoing; officer changes are routine in many company structures. Live Companies House status as of 2026-09-23.
Forum footprint: 507 MoneySavingExpert forum discussions mention this company (browse). Roughly 0 of the top, relevance-sorted search results were posted in the last 90 days — an approximate figure by construction, not a true recency count. Recent thread titles: “E: 12/10 Win a Kindle, Sony Headphones or KeepCups (TW, IG, FB) small effort needed”, “E: 01/11 WIN a Kindle, Sony Headphones or Keepcup (TW, FB, IG)”, “E: 31/05 Win a £200 train journey”.
Elsewhere: 2.2★ on Google (346 reviews) — a 1.9-star gap between its Trustpilot and Google scores.
TrustScore over time
4.1 → 4.1 across 9 census measurements since 2026-08-31. Our own record, independent of Trustpilot’s display.
Reply behaviour over time
Solid: % of negative reviews replied to. Dashed: typical days to reply. Both as reported on this company’s Trustpilot profile, recorded whenever our census re-checked it and a figure had changed — the gaps between points are not equal: 2026-08-31 (78%, 13.8d) · 2026-09-05 (79%, 13.8d) · 2026-09-08 (78%, 13.8d) · 2026-09-11 (84%, 16.9d) · 2026-09-14 (86%, 17.6d) · 2026-09-17 (86%, 17.9d) · 2026-09-20 (86%, 18.0d) · 2026-09-23 (89%, 19.1d) · 2026-09-27 (90%, 19.4d).
Severity: 13% of this company’s 703 graded complaints were classified as severe (money lost, an essential service cut off, or a problem unresolved for months). See the harm index.
Reviewers here waited a median of 0.8 days between the experience and publishing their negative review (914 reviews record both dates).
Measured reply time: across 48 negative reviews that received a public reply, the median wait was 49 days — the company profile reports an average of 19 days. The two are measured differently: ours counts only replies we captured to negative reviews.
Reply quality: of 48 company replies to negative reviews analysed, 13% engaged with the specific problem and 85% were generic templates.
Review provenance: 1280 company-invited reviews in the recent window average 4.25★, while 147 organic (uninvited) reviews average 2.59★.
16% of its 917 recent 5★ reviews came from accounts that had written only that one review when we captured it (the median across companies is about 39%). A high share is a reason to look closer, not evidence of fake reviews.
Sector benchmark: poor core service makes up 20% of this company’s complaints vs a 14% median across 70 ranked companies in its sector.
Review velocity: 24,684 of this company’s 155,043 Trustpilot reviews (16%) were written in the last 12 months.
What are the most common complaints about Trainline?
Poor core service
139 reports · 20% of complaintsrising since 2026-09“Huge delay, total chaos on the train and an unsafe number of passengers”
1 reader marked this review helpful on Trustpilot.
“Train never turned up”
1 reader marked this review helpful on Trustpilot.
“Not happy getting stuck on the train for an hour at Peterborough”
1 reader marked this review helpful on Trustpilot.
Other
118 reports · 17% of complaintssteady“Every carriage was packed to an unbearable level and I had to stand”
1 reader marked this review helpful on Trustpilot.
“Why do you begin your communications with 'wanna' I am not a four year old.”
1 reader marked this review helpful on Trustpilot.
“With no support, then we was three hours late. So trying to sort a part refund/ compensation. They cancelled our return tickets.”
Support unhelpful
106 reports · 15% of complaintssteady“Phone up CS to try and amend or correct only to be treated like an idiot by a barely understandable fast talking 'helper'.”
1 reader marked this review helpful on Trustpilot.
“I asked a staff he told me read the letters by yourself”
1 reader marked this review helpful on Trustpilot.
“we needed 3 trains to get to our destination and as treat I bought the wife and I first class tickets”
1 reader marked this review helpful on Trustpilot.
Account/app problems
85 reports · 12% of complaintssteady“the app diverted to St John’s. I did not realise this and so my ticket was not valid”
1 reader marked this review helpful on Trustpilot.
“the cancellation button was greyed out, making it impossible for me to cancel the tickets myself.”
“I can’t speak to a human to sort this out.”
Refund refused
73 reports · 10% of complaintsrising since 2026-09“accidentally selected it, believing it was the appropriate result for the journey I had searched for”
1 reader marked this review helpful on Trustpilot.
“App won’t let me submit a refund because I had ‘already scanned in’”
1 reader marked this review helpful on Trustpilot.
“had no compensation for my delay or cancelled train”
Misleading pricing
70 reports · 10% of complaintsrising since 2026-09“accidentally selected it, believing it was the appropriate result for the journey I had searched for”
1 reader marked this review helpful on Trustpilot.
“computer said no and did not get my discount. I found this disappointing and disingenuous to advertise something”
1 reader marked this review helpful on Trustpilot.
“it changed the route and the times. 9.30am to 6.01am. As it split save no refund no changes”
Method: reviews are classified into a fixed complaint taxonomy by an automated reader; every category shown is backed by at least two verbatim quotes from distinct reviews. Trends are computed from dated review counts only. Negative reviews are deliberately over-sampled for evidence depth; headline percentages use an unbiased recent sample only. Report updated 2026-09-27.