West Coast Railways Recenzje 

Avoid West Coat Rail at all costs.

In February we booked for a trip in August, 5 weeks before hand they cancelled our trip because of planning restrictions.

This didn't make sense, so I did a bit more research and found that:

The initial legislation on Slam Door stock was announce in 1999. Doors on vintage trains required locks that would stop people opening the doors and keep people safe (Central Door Locking or CDL). They've had over 20 years to come up with a schedule for doing the work. The cost of fitting CDL would have been about 10% of their profit for 1 year. Roughly £15 per passenger.

WCR kept getting exemptions from The Office of Road and Rail (ORR). On the 1st of December 2023, they were given a final 3 month extension on the exemption first awarded in 2019. Simply, they had to get doors fixed.

The ORR made a few unannounced inspections and this together with a number of independent reports provided to them, determined that West Coast weren't adhering to the agreed mitigation plan, and that started this current debacle of WCRC dragging out compliance with the ORR decision and subsequent court ruling in December 2023.

WCRC introduced a fleet of carriages (six passenger vehicles and a generator van, hence less passengers and trips being cancelled) with central door locking in April 2024.

The doors aren't fixed, they've pulled a pretty sneaky manoeuvre which I suspect is technically in breach of the rulebook.

Essentially the formation has been made of the the traditional 1950s Mark 1s, alternating with 1970s air-conditioned Mark 2Fs. The 2Fs have Central Door Locking. Through cables have been run down the train to permit control of the door locking throughout, and the external doors on the Mark 1 vehicles are fully locked.

There is therefore no emergency egress from the Mark 1 vehicles short of breaking a window, passengers entering and exiting from the doors on the adjacent Mark 2Fs.

My objection is that locking passenger doors (with no means of emergency release) is completely against the rules. It was deemed a contribuory factor in the 1868 Irish Mail accident under and when it was found some staff were still unofficially practicing it in the 1970s as a means of segregating passengers on sleeping car trains (it was a contributory factor in casualty numbers in the Taunton Sleeping Car Fire), BR made it explicitly clear no doors were to be locked on vehicles in passenger service in any circumstances.

WCR are sealing people into these Mk. 1 carriages with no means of escape in the event of an Emergency that required the carriage be evacuated. In the event of the train hitting something, it's possible that these cables get severed thus preventing the use of the doors as an escape route.

Couple this with poor reviews on trip advisor and trust pilot of the trains being dirty, unclean and food not being a high quality dining experience, overall it's not safe and not worth the money. There are other heritage railway providers who have gladly installed central door locking, the trains are clean, high quality and much better than WCR.

Lots of tourist destinations like Fort William and Mailag complained when the Harry Potter/Jacobite train might not run due to the exemption not being renewed...but the safety of passengers comes before profits!

Read the following Wikipedia pages to see what other breeches of safety WCR have done:

(Look under history on the following page)

West_Coast_Railways

2015_Wootton_Bassett_rail_incident

Very very disappointed with the experience I booked the trip in December for our 30th wedding anniversary.1st class with afternoon tea (£28 each for a couple of sandwiches a couple of cakes and scone with jam and cream). The carriages that we traveled in were certainly not first class dirty seats / carpets and I don’t think windows had been cleaned for weeks. I paid over £200 for the poor experience I have messaged WCR and they don’t seem bothered what customers think.

I agree with the previous review. Exactly the same experience and nobody will even answer the telephone. Disgraceful behaviour and I wonder who is in charge of the non existent Customer Service!? Obs nobody. You don't deserve the business frankly and that’s what will happen - no more business. A niche expensive service that needs to be run properly. You've completely ruined all our plans and we've heard nothing form the so called ‘Complaints Department’! Shame on you as a company….. I am appalled. On here you have a staggering 70 percent 1 star in reviews somebody needs to get at grip!!!!!

WCR doesn’t give a s#it about customers.

I bought my mum and dad tickets for the bagoshite steam train last year for their Christmas, they were booked for June. WCR cancelled a week before and kept everyones money to the day before the journey, then refunded it. The Office of Rail and Road said heritage operators, including WCR were told "several years ago" that in order to operate after 31 March, they must either have central door locking - as opposed to hinged-door carriages - or would need an exemption.
WCR's application for an exemption failed and they made a claim for judicial review.
Despite this, WCR chose to sell tickets when it was far from certain that a new application for an exemption would be granted, either in time for the commencement of services or at all. It’s greed, pure scummy greed. Keeping customers money to the last second. Keeping customers not knowing whether to cancel hotels, car parks etc.

I was booked for the 6th May on the Jacobite Train which the company cancelled at short notice. Tried to email and phone them on numerous occasions but could never get a reply to either. They have indicated that they have processed my refund but as yet no money in my account. Have emailed them again but will I get a response? I think my next step will have to be trading standards if refund is not forthcoming. Very very disappointed with the company and having been looking forward to it for so long it I am feeling very annoyed

Total rip-off so avoid disappointment. Booked myself and my partner for a love of Scotland and big-fans of Harry potter. Off to a poor start with poor information on the train station itself in terms of parking, platform and directions (keep in mind a tourist solely coming to this place for this experience). Once on board, carriage windows haven't been cleaned for years so extremely foggy looking out and full of scratches, basically couldn't take any good photos from the window at all. Carriages extremely tired, stained and uncomfortable (we bought the standard 65 per person costing us 130 total). My guess is the high-ticket price is knowing you won't go again, which we won't. Very disappointed.

One of the best experiences and days out iv ever had. Absolutely nothing to complain about. All the staff were really helpful and amazing. The train was clean. The food was perfect I will be booking again. Loved every minute.

Stacey (bean server) was amazing on her first day she couldn't have been more helpful. We'd definitely travel in premier dining again!!

Terrible service, cancelled with 24 hours notice. Children devastated.

Horrible horrible customer service agent. She was nasty and could not care less. When I told her I wanted to complain about her she said put it in writing. I did. I have had an email saying it will take 6 weeks. Do not book unless you want people who do not care.

wrote complaint after Jacobite journey
I booked this trip for my partner for her birthday 28th May and we were very excited to go on the train having seen it from below the viaduct before and tried to book a few years before but was all busy, was very very disappointed as the train inside was very dirty, there were cobwebs everywhere and not new ones they had lots of bits of flies still in them the floors were dirty dont know when they were last hoovered and the toilet was so disgusting that I wouldnt use it no matter how desperate i was. Considering that it is advertised as a scenic sightseeing route I'm at a loss as to why the windows were so dirty and you couldnt even take a good pictures out of them and when you get to Mallaig station it is completley covered in seagull poo all over it not like you could make you way along stepping in and out it was everywhere. The train was full to capacity and there was a lot of American and Canadian passengers on there and i was so embarrassed to be Scottish for them to experience such a bad level of service, the train sits at Mallaig for 2hours surely you could employ someone at the station to clean the train while everyone is off looking around you make enough money from the tickets, would not recommend this trip to people and a lot has asked me about it as they were thinking of going on it but I cant in true honestly tell them its value for money or even a good comfortable sight seeing trip please raise your standards it cant be that hard or cost that much money to do a bit of cleaning
THEIR REPLY
Re: JAC-342228



Further to your correspondence regarding your journey on our Jacobite service. Your comments were sent to the Senior Management for their response.



We can confirm that the onboard team at Fort William were contacted with the issues that you had raised and they have confirmed that the carriages, interior and exterior are cleaned when the service returns to the depot in preparation for the following day. On the day of travel all carriages are inspected prior to departing the depot, however, should any passenger have any concerns on the journey, they would need to speak to the Guard on duty. We can only offer our apologies if you had felt that the service did not meet with your expectations on this occasion as the issues raised would needed to have been dealt with by the onboard team.



With regards to the cleanliness at the railway station, whilst we also note your disappointment with the cleanliness of the platform area, the station is maintained by Scot Rail employees as we are only one of the companies who will have access to the main line station.



Thank you for taking the time to provide us with your feedback, we are sorry once again, if you had felt the journey was not value for money.



Yours sincerely



Complaints Department

West Coast Railways

I have booked a journey on Jacobite train. Due to severe hot condition on 19th July , all trains from London Euston and Kingscross has been cancelled without an ETA.
It is lot of money I lost for the journey and is non-refundable.
I have phoned ,messaged WCR as a good will gesture please transfer the ticket in Sep so that I can re-book my holiday and visit again, But WCR completely inflexible.

Just arranging a booking on Jacobite train journey. My son got us a voucher to go on the journey and due to situation out with our control we have had to go STD class which only uses up 2/3 of the value the amount left is non refundable it’s a lot of money which we or my son will loose. WCR are totally inflexible