National Rail 4+

I am replacing my previous 4* review from several years ago (in which I stated that I used the app every day and it was “an invaluable part of my commute”) with this 1* review, following the recent update. I won’t go into the many failings of this updated app, as the numerous other 1* reviews on here cover off all my complaints. I am now using the trainline app, which is not as good as the previous nationalrail app in my opinion, but is massively better than this new version. I can’t imagine that there was any user acceptance testing before this was rolled out, as all the feedback on here demonstrates that the app is no longer fit-for-purpose for the people who are actually using it. I understand the developers wanted to improve accessibility for the important minority who need it, but surely that should have been through an option that can be turned on or off, rather than by making the app extremely difficult to use for everyone else? The developers are promising further updates to restore previous functionality - I’ll try the app again in January 2025 and if it is still missing the basic features that it used to have I will just delete it. Very disappointed.

Hi, we're sorry to hear you don't like our new app. We have a number of fixes and updates planned for the upcoming months. Customer feedback is really important to us so please email customer.relations@nationalrail.co.uk with anything else you'd like us to consider as we continue to develop and roll out our new app. Thanks for your feedback - NRE Team

Not a good update to the app in my opinion. Before it was just to check your trains and plan the journey. It had lots of helpful features to do this. Being able to see already departed trains easily (very helpful to see if any trains had been cancelled previously or if they delays had been going on for a while), save favourite stations and view everything clearly. I see the new update is like their website. Why have 2 of the same. The website is perfect as it is and the app although it did crash a bit was great otherwise. Faster than the current one when it was working well upon selecting trains. The load time for that is longer now as there is more going on in the app. The writing is much smaller in the calling cards, there is more fitted into a small space however I believe it was good as it was before without seeing so much. The calling points of a train is shown very very spaced out, too spaced out. You have to scroll 4 times to see 16 stops. Before it was 2 :) all in all, I hope it changes back but if not this update serves the function it’s just not as easy to use as before, misses some very helpful functions and is more confusing on the eyes.

Hi, we're sorry to hear you don't like our new app. We have a number of updates & fixes planned for the upcoming months. Customer feedback is really important to us so please email customer.relations@nationalrail.co.uk with anything else you'd like us to consider as we continue to develop and roll out our new app. Thanks for your feedback - NRE Team

I use this app every day for travelling to and from work and hate the new update. Firstly, the old app saved the train stations in it so I didn’t have to keep typing every time I go in the app. But the biggest loss for me is being able to see ‘earlier trains’ and scroll back through the day on live trains. My station often has issues and it was valuable to see how many trains before the current one were cancelled etc. This gives an idea of how big the issue is. Now I can only see the train expected to arrive next. I’ve just gone on and it says cancelled but I have no idea if this is the first train cancelled and this the start of the issue or the trains have been cancelled for hours meaning the issue might be resolved soon. Being able to see previous trains was crucial for me, looking for a new app now but hope you bring back this feature. Also the live trains interface now takes up too much space and means you have to scroll to see upcoming trains. This is an update no-one asked for. Please please think about the users of the app and the strength of feedback and put these features back in

Hi, we're sorry to hear you don't like our new app. We have a number of updates planned, including being able to view already departed trains in Live Departures. This will be available within the next couple of months. There will be a new My Travel feature within the app, which will let you favourite a station by the end of the year. Thanks for your feedback - NRE Team