Unhappy?
This is what you need to do
If you have a complaint
Rail services
If you have a complaint about the railway or the service you have received from a train company then you should complain to the service provider involved. Most complaints can be resolved in the first instance by dealing directly with the company responsible.
We cannot become involved until the train company has had a chance to resolve the matter for you, but we are happy to give you advice about the best way to make your complaint.
If you are unhappy with the outcome of your complaint or you do not feel the train company handled it appropriately you can ask us to follow it up.
Passenger Focus
Are you happy that we handled your complaint correctly? You can find details of our Customer Complaints handling procedure here.
British Transport Police
If your complaint is about the British Transport Police or the conduct of its Officers or Staff then you should complain directly to the British Transport Police.
Use these templates to help you make a complaint
We've put together the following Microsoft Word templates to help you make a complaint.
You can also open these templates in the free-of-charge OpenOffice Writer if you don't have Microsoft Word. You can download the OpenOffice software by following the link below:
Download OpenOffice
To use the templates, fill in the grey boxes with the details of your individual complaint.
To download them follow the links below:
Case of the week
Making a spectacle of it
A passenger had booked her tickets with Virgin Trains for travel on their services. The passenger did not have her glasses with her while she was travelling and found her ticket difficult to read – she accidentally boarded the 3.04pm. The train manager pointed out that she should’ve been travelling on the 4.04pm service and issued the passenger with an Unpaid Fares Notice.
The mistake only came to light after she boarded the train as she had already been greeted at Stockport station, by Virgin staff who had checked her ticket and showed her on-board.
Passenger Focus appealed to Virgin as this was clearly a genuine error, asking them to refund the amount paid.
Virgin agreed and a full refund was issued.
The passenger was very happy with the outcome saying:
“I must thank you for your quick response and good service. From the first time I contacted Passenger Focus I felt that I was dealing with people who were logical and fair minded. I am very pleased to hear that I shall have the amount refunded. I was prepared for the worst and this is great news and makes me feel far warmer towards 'Virgin Trains' than I may have felt otherwise!”