Our Full Passenger Charter

Introduction – Our commitment to you

Welcome to CrossCountry. We want you to enjoy travelling with us from the moment you start to plan your journey to the time you reach your destination. Our Passenger’s Charter sets out our commitments to you so that you can judge us against our promises. We have tried to make our Charter clear and easy to read, but because it is a formal commitment from us to you, we will use some technical terms.

We will review our Charter annually in consultation with Transport Focus, the independent national rail watchdog.

This Passenger’s Charter sets out:

• Our standards
• How you can plan and book tickets for your journey
• How we look after you during your journey
• How we look after you and make amends when things go wrong
• How we work with others in the National Rail industry
• How we measure the standards against our actual performance 
  and then publish the results
• How you can contact us

When travelling with us, we endeavour to provide the following:

• A convenient and reliable service for planning your journey
• Convenient facilities for buying tickets
• A welcoming and efficient customer service team on our trains
• A reliable train service which is on time
• Clean trains and stations
• A safe environment at stations and on our trains
• A seat on our trains if you reserve one beforehand
• A fair outcome when things go wrong

Our Team

You should feel welcome when travelling with us, and we realise that our staff have the opportunity to make a very positive difference to your journey. You should expect our staff to be smartly dressed, wearing a name badge, and ready to respond to you in a friendly and professional way. All our team members participate in our customer service training programmes so that they can confidently and safely deal with a range of situations and circumstances, ensuring your journey with us is as relaxed as possible. Our train crews have been specially chosen and trained to help you and will make every effort to sort out any problems you might experience during your journey with us.

Service improvements

We will continue developing new service improvements, so please let us know if you have any ideas about how we could improve your service. We will also work with our partners who run the stations to find ways of improving access to stations, information and facilities such as seating and lighting. If you have any suggestions about stations, do contact us via the channels on our contact us page on the website Contact Us and FAQs | CrossCountry

Planning your journey

Information about timetables and fares

We will give you unbiased travel information about journeys across the National Rail network, whether you are travelling with us or with other train companies. You can get train times and fare information in a number of different ways:

From crosscountrytrains.co.uk

From our mobile phone app

From our telesales service

Textphone booking support - 18001 0371 244 2389

From  National Rail Enquiries

From ticket offices or machines provided by other train 
companies

We also publish a number of timetables free of charge, which you can get from staffed stations across our network. In addition, we also offer a dedicated CrossCountry app, which is available free of charge and for the vast majority of handsets. For details on how to download, visit crosscountrytrains.co.uk.

National Rail Enquiries

You can get information about all GB trains from National Rail Enquiries. Just call National Rail (Call 03457 48 49 50) or visit them online. You can create your own timetable through the personalised timetable process on the National Rail Enquiries Website and get the times you need in a handy, easy-to-use format. Enter your journey details and immediately download a PDF timetable which can include connections and other operator’s services.  

If you want a timetable printed and posted directly to your home, you can email or telephone National Rail Enquiries Customer Relations.

Track improvement work

Our network is heavily used by passenger and freight trains, and Network Rail is constantly maintaining and repairing railway tracks, signalling and stations. At times, this work may mean that we must alter our timetables or provide road transport to replace the train services. We may also offer taxis in some circumstances. We plan most of this work well beforehand, and we will try to warn you when you book your ticket. We will ensure that any disruption to your journey is kept to a minimum.

Where track improvement work is planned on lines used by our trains, we will display posters at staffed stations at which we call to tell you about changes to train times. These posters will give details of any longer journey times and rail replacement road transport. We will try to give at least 28 days’ notice of any planned changes to train times and as much notice as possible of any track improvement work. All this information will also be made available at crosscountrytrains.co.uk. The National Rail Enquiries website and telephone line will also be able to give details of any planned track improvement work, including changes to train times and rail replacement road transport, normally 12 weeks beforehand.

If Network Rail needs to carry out any emergency engineering work, we may not be able to give very much notice of alterations to services, but we will display information as soon as possible on our website and ensure that it appears on the station information screens where our trains call, and other media where available.

PlusBus

You can buy your PlusBus tickets with your train tickets at crosscountrytrains.co.uk. PlusBus is a discount-price ticket for unlimited bus travel in many towns and cities across Great Britain that you buy with your train ticket. Bus travel can be at the start, the finish, or both ends of your train journey. Visit plusbus.info for more information.

Buying your ticket

You must hold a valid ticket before you travel. If you board one of our trains without a ticket you will be charged the full single fare or full return fare unless the ticket office at the station where you boarded the train is closed or there is no working ticket machine available (in which case, you must buy one from our on-board staff).

There are a number of different types of ticket and journey costs to fit different travel times and patterns. There will, from time to time, be special promotional fares on offer. Normally for longer-distance journeys, buying your ticket well beforehand and being able to say which trains you want to travel on can greatly reduce the fare you pay.

You can get information and buy your ticket in a number of different ways. These are set out below.

Buying your ticket online with CrossCountry

You can buy a ticket at crosscountrytrains.co.uk for any journey, for travel with any train company in Great Britain. The booking process will help you choose the ticket which best suits your needs, allowing you to easily compare prices and ticket options. For many journeys you can fulfil your ticket as an e-Ticket, giving you flexibility to print at home, show as a pdf on your phone, send to your Apple wallet or store in your CrossCountry app. When booking a CrossCountry Advance fare through our website you can select exactly which seat you want to reserve from a plan of the train layout.

Buying your ticket through our CrossCountry app

You can buy tickets for any train company through our smartphone app. If you buy a CrossCountry Advance ticket, you can have this sent direct to your phone as an e-Ticket. Alternatively, you can buy your tickets through the app and collect them from the self-service ticket machine at the station, subject to a collection fee

Buying your ticket over the telephone

You can buy a ticket for any train company through our booking line

03447 369 123  

0800 - 2000 Monday - Sunday (Option 2, Option 2)

During the booking process, your advisor will help you choose the best ticket that suits your needs. You can arrange for tickets to be posted to you or you can collect the tickets from certain stations on the day you travel, subject to a collection fee

If you choose to have your tickets posted to you, we will send you your ticket by First Class post, but please allow five working days from the date you order (you can also pay by National Rail Travel Vouchers, but please allow up to three weeks from the date you order).

Buying your ticket from a station

You can buy tickets at most stations, either at the ticket office where the station has ticket staff, or from self-service ticket machines. The times that ticket offices are open are clearly displayed at the station and are also listed on the station facilities pages of our website. Station posters will also give information about how to buy a ticket outside those hours. We do not operate the ticket offices at stations at which our trains call. The times of peak demand will be displayed at the station – please be patient if you go to the station at these busiest times as you may have to queue a bit longer.

You should be served within five minutes at peak times and three minutes at off-peak times. Ticket offices accept cash, most credit and debit cards and National Rail Travel Vouchers.

Self-service ticket machines at many principal stations also sell a wide range of tickets for CrossCountry journeys and other train services. These machines often accept credit and debit cards as well as cash.

Although we don’t run the stations, we will work closely with each station operator to make sure the service you receive meets our standards. We also know that many of our customers depend on connecting services to and from the CrossCountry network. When you change trains, we will give station operators at the interchange standards to follow to ensure these connections are supported as effectively as possible.

If you are not satisfied with the service provided at a station, you should first contact the station operator or refer to the relevant Passenger’s Charter (details of station operators can be found by contacting National Rail Enquiries). But always let us know, too, if any part of your journey with us did not meet your expectations. Even if it is a matter about a station, we will follow it up.

Seat reservations

Many of our tickets already include seat reservations on specified trains. Even if you buy your ticket through another operator, you can ask them to reserve you a seat free of charge when travelling with us. If for some reason, we cannot honour your reservation please ask a member of the on-board team for help. Our staff will try their best to find you a seat.

If you are still without a seat after 20 minutes a member of the on-board team will be happy to endorse your ticket if you ask. You may send your endorsed ticket into our Customer Relations Team who will give you National Rail Vouchers to the value of at least 5% of the price for that journey in recognition of our inability to honour your seat reservation.

If you are travelling with a bike and we cannot honour your reservation we ask that you speak to a member of the on-board team or station staff so your ticket can be endorsed.

If your journey was delayed as a result and you send your ticket to our Customer Relations Team, we will offer recompense against the price of your rail ticket under our Delay Repay scheme.

In accordance with your legal rights as a consumer you may be eligible to a different level of compensation where CrossCountry is at fault, and nothing set out above is intended to limit or exclude your legal rights in these circumstances. If you believe this applies to your journey, please contact our Customer Relations Team (Contact Us)

Group travel

If you are travelling in a group of 10 or more people we ask that you contact our Group Travel team. You can also complete an online form at crosscountrytrains.co.uk and we’ll e-mail or call you back to discuss your requirements. The Group Travel team is best placed to meet the needs of your booking and will make sure you get the best deal for your journey.

The National Rail Conditions of Travel

The National Rail Conditions of Travel sets out the legal contract that you have with the Train Companies when you buy a ticket and travel with us. You can get a copy of the conditions free of charge at all staffed stations or from our Customer Relations Team. Details of the conditions are also on the National Rail website.

How we look after you if you need extra help  

Accessibility

It's important to us at CrossCountry that our passengers have all the information they need before they embark on a train journey. Below, you'll find essential resources to help you navigate our network with ease. Before travelling, those eligible should make sure to invest in a Disabled Persons Railcard to save 1/3 on your rail fare for up to three years.

Helpful and useful information for customers to use before your journey can be found on our dedicated accessibility page (crosscountrytrains.co.uk/help-support/accessibility)  

CrossCountry Passenger Assist  

We want travelling with us to be easy and enjoyable for all our customers and we can arrange extra help if you need it throughout your journey. By contacting us ahead of time we can, where possible, arrange for a member of staff to meet and help you at staffed stations and on the train, not just when travelling with us but across the wider rail network as well. Our Passenger Assist reservation team will give you advice on the facilities available at stations and on our trains. If you need help getting on and off the train, we will make arrangements for you to be met at the station you start from, the station you leave the railway at, and with any changes your journey involves.

You can request assistance by booking up to two hours in advance of the journey you plan to make, whatever the time that starts. There may however be occasions where this may not be possible. In these circumstances, we will do everything possible to provide the appropriate accommodation and all necessary assistance. You can turn up without booking but if you have not pre-arranged your journey, please advise the station staff at your departure station or a member of the on-board team, who will endeavour to arrange help for you. Priority will however be given to passengers who have booked assistance and seats or wheelchair spaces in advance.

Passenger Assist App

Developed in conjunction with National Rail, you can book your assistance through the dedicated passenger assistance app and website. Your journey can be booked in 3 easy steps.

Download the passenger assistance app or book online

Setup your profile

Tell us about your journey

Once you have submitted your request through passenger assistance the different station and train operators are notified of the details of your travel and will email you to confirm your journey.

Other ways to book assistance

If you’d prefer to speak to CrossCountry directly, there are a number of ways to contact us so we can help you plan your journey:

By Telephone - 0800 030 9224

By text relay service - 18001 08000 030 9224  

You can book your assistance when purchasing tickets through the CrossCountry website (however, booking through the Passenger Assist process is preferred)

You can book assistance with us 24 hours a day (except 25th and 26th December). Our contact centre operates between 08:00 and 20:00 and outside of these times our third-party supplier will process your assistance booking. We are unable to make any bookings on 25th and 26th December, however our third-party supplier will reopen for bookings at 00:01 on 27th December to allow bookings to made for morning services.  

Our Accessible Travel Policy

We also publish our Accessible Travel Policy, which sets out our policies and approach towards providing assistance for older and disabled customers, and those who simply need some extra help to make their journey. Our Policy is available on our website at Accessible travel policy

Our customer leaflet, ‘Making Rail Accessible’ provides a practical guide, explaining what we do to assist older and disabled customers who travel with us and the standards of service they can reasonably expect. It is available at all staffed stations which we serve and on our Travel Assistance page. Copies of Making Rail Accessible and our Accessible Travel Policy can also be obtained from our Customer Relations team.

We can also provide timetables and other information, including this Charter, in other formats such as in large print and on audiotape.

We know that many people who are not disabled sometimes need help. If you need help or advice for any reason, get in touch with us on the numbers above. We can help you if you are older or travelling with young children or feel that travelling by train for whatever reason may be difficult. We want you to travel with us and we will always try to help where we can.

Travelling on our trains

You will receive a warm welcome on our trains, and we expect you to find them in a safe and clean condition. We know that all our customers have their own needs when they are on the train or changing trains at stations and we offer assistance to make your journey as easy as possible.

On-board catering services

We offer an at-seat service of food and drink on most of our long-distance services operated by our voyager fleet. There is no catering available on our regional services operated by our Turbostar fleet between Nottingham and Cardiff and between Birmingham and Cambridge / Stansted Airport.

Our catering services are subject to availability and may need to be amended (sometimes at short notice), however if we are not able to provide the expected catering service, we will endeavour to let you know before you board the train so that you can make other arrangements. To find out which trains have catering on-board visit our website – crosscountrytrains.co.uk.

No smoking

By law, smoking is not allowed on any part of our trains, or at stations, including station entrances and exits. This includes the use of E-Cigarettes (Vapes).

Taking your bike on the train

We recognise that many people use a bike to get to the station. We encourage the operators of all the stations we call at to provide secure bike parking. We also welcome passengers who want to take bikes on the train, but space for bikes is limited so we strongly advise you to plan ahead and reserve your bike space. You can do this by calling our team or by contacting us via X (formerly known as Twitter).

Our Turbostar trains offer a maximum of two bike spaces one reserved and one unreserved , while Voyager trains have two reservable bike spaces. Unreserved bikes will be accepted on a first come, first served basis and subject to space being available for them to be carried safely and securely. Our staff can refuse to allow bikes on the train if there is insufficient space.

Unfortunately, owing to their size and lack of manoeuvrability we are unable to carry tandems or Rann trailers on board our trains. For more information about taking your bike on one of our trains visit crosscountrytrains.co.uk or call our Customer Relations Team.

Due to safety reasons, you cannot bring e-scooters onboard our services.

Taking an e-bike on the train

Road legal electric bicycles (also known as e-bikes, including e-folding bikes) can be taken on our trains. These are electric bikes that are pedal assisted with a motor that generates a maximum continuous rated power output of 250 watts and do not provide electrical assistance when travelling at more than 15.5 mph.

Please check the general cycle restrictions if you are travelling with another train service provider as part of your journey, which will also cover your ability to take folding e-bikes. (e.g. use in peak / off peak periods and any other limitations)

For the safety of yourself and other passengers:

· Charging of e-bikes is not permitted on the train

· The e-bike battery must not be removed from the e-bike (unless designed to do so for folding purposes – e.g. a Brompton folding bike)

· An e-bike with a damaged battery cannot be carried.

· Spare e-bike batteries cannot be carried.

· Electrically modified or adapted e-bikes are not permitted on trains.

· You must use the normal designated cycle storage areas on trains- ensuring the bike does not block entrances, exits or aisleway access for passengers

· Do not lock your e-bike to any part of the train, in case of the need to remove the bike quickly from the train in an emergency

· In the event of an e-bike battery fire, evacuate the area, then follow the relevant on-board procedure to notify the driver or train crew (see nearby posters or signage for an emergency)

What happens when things go wrong?

We do not expect that problems will arise while you are travelling with us, but we realise that, from time to time, things will go wrong. We promise that we will treat you with respect and extra care at these times. All our staff are given training to cover situations when things go wrong, so we can quickly make decisions and let you know what is happening. We will also consult our station suppliers concerning training for their staff who give service on our behalf. You will appreciate that not all situations are the same, but we do have emergency plans to put in place to limit the effects of any problem that arises during your journey with us.

How we deal with delays

We appreciate that a delay to your train is always frustrating, whether you are waiting at a station or already on board. Our staff are trained to identify and sort out any problems you experience because of a delay to your train. We will always do our best to let you know about any delays as they arise before you board the train. Even when delayed, the train will usually be the quickest way to get you to your destination.  

If, however, your train is cancelled and the next train doesn’t leave for more than two hours, we will provide other transport. Normally this transport will take you to the nearest available station where you can continue your journey.

Either we or the station operator may choose to provide other transport to your destination station. Several of our trains travel long distances and if it is not possible to get you to a destination which you have bought a ticket for by train (or by other transport), we will offer overnight accommodation.  

If you have a flight to catch from an airport near to a station served by CrossCountry trains, we will normally only consider providing alternative transport if you planned your rail journey to arrive at the airport station at least two hours before the recommended check in time. If you’re catching a ferry or cruise liner, we advise you to plan your journey to aim to get to the relevant terminal two hours before the recommended check in time.

We will endeavour to give you full information about the delay to your journey, whether you are at a station or on one of our trains. Our on-board team will help you plan the rest of your journey. Where possible, we will also pass on information to the people meeting you at your destination. If it is not possible to get you to your destination, either by train or other transport, we will get you back to your starting station or make special arrangements if you become stranded.

If you are delayed for longer than one hour, we will endeavour to provide free water (when available and while stocks last).  

Severe Weather

During severe weather, the railway will usually continue to run, but we may have to amend our timetables to take account of the weather conditions. Our trains run across an extensive network and experience very different weather conditions during their journeys. We have planned emergency timetables for when this happens and will let you know as soon as possible if we need to put them in place.

Refunds

Refunds for Tickets

If you bought a ticket through the CrossCountry Trains website, app or telesales team and did not use it, you might be entitled to a refund. We do sell some reduced-price tickets on the understanding that refunds are not available, but we will remind you of this when you buy the ticket.

• If the train you planned to catch is delayed or cancelled and as a result you decide not to travel, you will need to contact your ticket retailer to request a refund. In this instance, please advise the retailer that you abandoned your journey due to service disruption. We will only be able to directly refund customers who have purchased from the CrossCountry Trains website, CrossCountry Trains app or telesales team and within 28 days from when the delay occurred.

If you bought your ticket through us and you require a refund you can do this online or by calling us.

If we issue a ‘do not travel’ warning and you follow our advice and do not travel, you can apply for a full refund from your ticket retailer if you have a single or return ticket. If you have a Season ticket and are unable to travel, please contact our Customer Relations team who will process any eligible compensation. Please note, if you purchase a weekly/monthly season ticket whilst aware of any ongoing disruption, you would not be eligible for compensation.

If the train service is running normally and you decide not to use a 
ticket for your own reasons, you may be entitled to a refund

• (please note that in such cases Advance tickets are not refundable). We may charge an administration fee of up to £5 for refunds. If you bought your ticket from another ticket retailer, you must return the tickets to that retailer.
• If you have a Season ticket but you no longer need it, you will need to contact your ticket retailer.

Refunds for Season Tickets

For Season tickets purchased through a CrossCountry Trains channel, you should apply for a refund on your Season ticket in the 'My account' section of the website.

We must receive your Season ticket within three days of your quoted last day of use, failure to provide the ticket within three days may mean the refund amount is less than the quotation. Your refund is based on what would have been paid if you had bought a ticket for the period of actual use.

• If you decide not to use or to stop using a Season ticket, a refund may be obtained for the remaining validity if the Season ticket is returned to the original ticket retailer.
• The amount we will refund is based on the difference between the cost of the Season ticket you originally bought and the cost of a Season ticket for the period up to the date you returned the ticket to us. So, you might find that you get a smaller refund than you were expecting or perhaps even nothing at all if your Season ticket was due to expire. For example, an annual Season ticket is calculated on the rate for 40 weeks and has no refund validity after 10 months and 12 days.

If you need to change a Season ticket bought online, you can request this in your ‘My Account’ section on the CrossCountry website.

If you need to change a Season ticket on a Smartcard, then please contact our Smartcard Support Team.

• Please remember that if you have a Season ticket and you are not 
  able to travel for more than four weeks because of certified sickness (an illness for which you have a doctor’s certificate for example), you may apply for a refund of part of the ticket you have not used. We may ask you for evidence to support your claim.
• If you have a Flexi Season ticket but you no longer need it, you must apply for a refund from the retailer you purchased this from before the end of the 28-day validity period. The amount we will refund will be calculated based on the price of an Anytime return ticket for the number of travel days used within the ticket’s validity minus the administration fee.

If you have been ill and couldn’t use your Flexi Season ticket, you must apply for a refund before the end of the 28-Day validity period.

• There must be a minimum of one unused journey left to refund and a £5 admin fee will apply. If you can provide evidence that you were not able to apply for a refund because of illness (such as a doctor’s note), we will still consider your refund application after the expiry date.

If our trains were running late  

Compensation for delays

We will use all available means to advise you when you may be eligible for compensation if you are delayed by 30 minutes or more, including the following:

• Where applicable announcements will be made on board regarding compensation entitlements and how to claim
• Our website shows how you can claim your compensation
• Our Social Media team will inform you about Delays and how to 
  claim under our Delay Repay scheme  
• We promote Delay Repay through news posters at all stations continuously
• We provide information about Delay Repay via customer e-mails

Delay Repay

If your journey with us was delayed by 30 minutes or more to the destination printed on your ticket, irrespective of what caused the delay you will normally receive compensation based on the following guidelines:

• 50% of the cost of your single ticket or 50% of the cost of either 
  portion of your return ticket for delays of between 30 and 59 
  minutes
• 100% of the cost of your single ticket or 100% of the cost of either portion of your return ticket for delays of 60 minutes or more

If either or both the outward or return legs of your journey is delayed by more than two hours and you have a return ticket, you will be entitled to receive up to 100% of the cost of the return ticket.  

If you have a combination of tickets for your journey, we will compensate you for your whole journey.  

In the case of Season tickets:  

• Delay Repay compensation is calculated based on the proportional single ticket price paid for that journey. For example, the daily proportional cost of a seven-day ticket is calculated based on an assumption that ten single journeys are made per working week (five return journeys).

If part of your journey was with another train company, we would compensate you if we caused the delay.  

If we were not responsible for the delay, we will pass your claim to the other train company and ask them to contact you. We will always let you know when we have done this.  

In all cases, please make your claim within 28 days of the date of the delay. Valid Delay Repay claims will be resolved within 20 days, once approved it can take a further 10 days for the money to be credited to your account.  

We do not normally accept claims for compensation if trains are delayed or cancelled and you were aware of the delay before you bought your ticket. If we introduce an emergency timetable, compensation will be based on the emergency timetable.

You can claim compensation for a delay online by using the online form or print and complete our Delay Repay Form (PDF). Freepost Delay Repay claim forms are also available from stations we call at on our network and on our trains.  

When trains are seriously disrupted, we will make forms more widely available where possible. You can post that form to us and we will issue the compensation,  

If you cannot collect a Delay Repay claim form, you may also claim in writing to:

Customer Relations Team, 5th Floor, Multistory, 18 The Priory Queensway, Birmingham, B4 6BS. Please provide the details of your journey and the delay.

Season ticket type value of each single journey

*Individual season ticket compensation calculations may differ, depending on the ticket validity.

Your compensation checklist

So that we can process your application and get your compensation back to you, please make sure that you let us have:

Either your original or an image of your ticket(s), Season ticket and corresponding photocard or a full copy of your booking confirmation email.

• If you have bought a Season ticket on a Smartcard, then you will also need your unique Smartcard number
• Your name and the address for our reply
• Information about your journey-
• The date you travelled,
• Your start and final destination station (don’t worry we’ll find any connecting stations along the way or ask if we need more information),
• How long you were delayed in reaching your final destination station.

Please also make sure that you choose how you would like us to pay you your compensation when you submit your claim. We pay 
compensation by:

• Bank Transfer (BACS)
• Card Payment (certain card types or issuers).
• National Rail Travel Vouchers so that you can spend them on any rail journey – it does not have to be a journey on our trains.

Many of the stations we serve have automatic ticket gates. These gates are supervised during their hours of operation. If you need to retain your ticket on completion of your journey, instead of using the gates please show your ticket to a member of staff.

In accordance with your legal rights as a consumer, including those under the Consumer Rights Act 2015, you may be eligible to a different level of compensation where CrossCountry is at fault, and nothing set out above is intended to limit or exclude your legal rights in these circumstances. If you believe this applies to your journey, please contact our Customer Relations team. You must not seek to recover the same money twice, for example both under our Delay Repay claims process and the Consumer Rights Act 2015. Customers are responsible for submitting valid claims and we reserve the right to check the validity of all claims we receive.

We accept claims made by a third party if they are made in the name of the claiming passenger. We treat seriously any applications we believe may be fraudulent and will take further action if appropriate.

After your journey

Having your say

We hope you will have enjoyed your journey with us, and we look forward to seeing you again. If you have noticed any exceptional service offered by a member of our staff, we would be delighted to pass on your thanks to the person concerned.  

Customer Service Survey

As part of our opportunity to judge how we are performing against our standards, we may ask you to participate in one of our customer service surveys. We would very much like to hear your views, whether you have had a good experience travelling with us or not.

It is important for us to find out what is important to you and how you feel about the services we offer. Our teams review these surveys along with the information we collect ourselves, and this helps us continually improve the service we offer you.

Customer Relations

You can contact our Customer Relations Team by telephone, by e-mail, through our website, or in writing – the full details are shown in the Useful Contacts section at the end of this Passenger’s Charter. We will always aim to send you a full reply within ten working days.

If we cannot give you our full response within this time, we will send you an acknowledgement and let you know when you should expect to hear more from us.

If you are delayed on the services of another operator and you write to us, we will ensure your letter gets sent to the right people and let you know to whom we forwarded it.

Please give us the opportunity to try to resolve your complaint. If you are unhappy with our first response and you contact us again, your complaint will be reviewed and responded to by a manager. This second response will include the name and position of the manager and explain the role of the Rail Ombudsman.

Rail Ombudsman

If you remain unhappy with the response you receive, you have the right to appeal to the Rail Ombudsman. The Rail Ombudsman is there to help resolve on going complaints between us and our customers. It’s free to use their services and they are independent of the rail industry. They don’t take sides but just look at the evidence available. They will help us both to try to reach an agreement, but if this doesn’t happen, they will decide based on the evidence they’ve received. If you agree with their decision, then we must act on what they say.

You can appeal to the Rail Ombudsman if:

• You’re unhappy with our final response to your complaint which will be contained in a letter or email (sometimes called a ‘deadlock letter’); or
• We haven’t resolved your complaint within 40 working days of receiving it; and
• No more than 12 months have passed since we sent you our final 
  response.

There are some complaints that the Rail Ombudsman won’t be able to investigate, for example if it’s about the way one of our services has been designed, industry policy, or if your complaint relates to an event which took place before the Rail Ombudsman service was established. If that’s the case, then they’ll contact you to let you know. If possible, they will transfer your complaint to another organisation that may be able to help you further, such as Transport Focus – the independent consumer watchdog for the rail industry. They will independently review your complaint and where appropriate, follow things up on your behalf. Visit the Rail Ombudsman Website (including online chat) for more information. From the Rail Ombudsman Contact Us Details you can access various contact details including:

• Telephone
• Textphone
• Email
• X (formerly known as Twitter)
• Post
• Opening times

Monitoring performance

’On time’ measures

Back in 2019 and to coincide with the start of Network Rail Control Period 6 (5-year plan) the rail industry changed how it measured train performance.

The old punctuality measure, known as the Public Performance Measure (PPM), which considered a train to be ‘on time’ if it reached its final destination within 5 or 10 minutes for short distance and long-distance services, respectively, was replaced by a suite of new measures.

‘On time’ measures were introduced which record train punctuality to the minute at every recorded stop on its journey. Punctuality now takes account of the train’s performance across its whole journey: - early; within a minute of the timetabled arrival; or within 3, 5, 10 or 15 minutes; and after 15, 20 or 30 minutes. Within our contract with the Department for Transport our passenger services are measured based on level of punctuality within time to 3 and time to 15.

The aim of these changes was to better reflect passengers’ actual experience rather than the mechanics of a train arriving on time, or not.

You will find our current performance measurements on our website.

Confidentiality and Data Protection

Keeping your personal information safe and secure is our priority, for more information please see our Privacy Policy. We will store and use any personal data which you provide to us when contacting us for the specific purpose of investigating your query, claim or complaint and to contact you regarding such investigation or to request further information or confirmation regarding this matter.

At all times such use, and storage will be in accordance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and any other relevant legislation from time to time.

Useful Contacts

Information about timetables and fares: National Rail Website

Information about Lost Property

Buying a ticket

You can buy a ticket from your local station, the CrossCountry website or just give us a call.

Passenger Assist

How we look after you if you need extra help. Visit the CrossCountry Passenger Assist page for contact details and more information.

Feedback

Your feedback is always welcomed so we can continue to make improvements to our service. Please visit our Contact Us page for our most up to date contact details. Including:

• Telephone - 03447 369 123
• Textphone – 18001 0800 030 9224
• Email - [email protected]
• X (formally known as Twitter)
• Facebook

A copy of our Complaints Handling Procedure can be obtained from crosscountrytrains.co.uk or by contacting our Customer Relations Team.