Translink Reviews 536

All I can do is compare my experience of Translink trains from before the changes following the opening of Grand Central.
There are more delays. Everything centres around Grand Central with the Bangor /Portadown line being ended and now travellers have to change at GC. adding extra time to the journey. Toilets are too far away and too few for a busy bus and train station. People want a fast efficient train network as a priority and convenient and plentyful toilets and seating when required. It's more like a shopping centre which is great if your waiting for a connection but for the commuter who are the majority users it's a downgrade from the service that existed before.

Timetables are made up nonsense. Bought a return train ticket from Antrim to Lanyon Place and timetable said last train leaves at 23:20. On arrival for return journey was told last train left at 22:50 leaving me stranded in Belfast

Poor foresight into timetable planning and implications of new station.
Travel to anywhere beyond GCS (From Portadown line.) made unduly difficult due to all other Belfast City Centre stops being relegated to the Bangor line (Previously part of the Portadown line.), making it necessary to consult two separate timetables when planning a journey. Little consideration shown towards transfers to these stops from GVS with trains frequently being late or it simply being quicker to walk to the location rather than wait up to 20 mins for a connection.

New station is egregiously large given the population of NI. Crowds build up often at peak times regardless, due to implication of ill tuned, slow ticket gates (which are often opened manually when queues get too large anyway).

Station also chose M&S, Starbucks and Brewdog over local stores and businesses that gave the old station some character.

How can they mess it up so quick? Given wrong information twice in Grand Central. Driver on bus to GB airport rude unfriendly. I’m local but English people behind us and I was embarrassed by him .

A dire service. I took train from Dublin to Belfast, there was an unscheduled train change and we arrived over one hour late.

These so called experts and logistics specialists couldn't organise their way out of a paper bag.

£340 million on a new station, employing purple shirted useless people who don't know what's going on.

Buses frequently pulling up the to the wrong bay causing chaos. Buses frequently late. Massive queues for over subscribed buses where they would have needed 3 buses at the same time.

This happens every day at the same time you would think someone would have a bit of grey matter to think "maybe we should put on 2 or 3 buses at peak.

Biggest mismanagement of MY tax payers money and were stuck with this ineffective organisation.

4 busses denied me and my children to get on the bus as it was to “full” however EVERY SINGLE BUS had 10-15 seats available and possibly more at the top, the bottom was practically empty with only 2-3 people on. Many drive by without word, others tell you to walk! Just because I’m waiting on a bus to go to city centre and it’s a 20 minute walk doesn’t mean u are entitled to tell me to? Disgusting busses aswel always poorly taken care of, multiple busses that were meant to come 30 minutes ago have not arrived still. Don’t ride with translink honestly horrible heartless drivers, also they like to be bipolar with the times they arrive, traffic or not they’ll always be late😊

Absolutely useless. Train late by 20 mins as it needed to be refuelled. Should this not be part of the schedule? Government attempting to promote public transport but service is absolutely dire. Stick to the car as the only reliable option with the poor management of public transport. All those is senior positions should be sacked with immediate effect for gross incompetence. NI still in the dark ages regarding transport infrastructure and delivery of services. Embarrassing and no longer acceptable for the great people of this country.

Trains constantly cancelled or delayed and buses never on time if they even show at all!

What is the point in spending £340M on a new station and £17M on upgrading an existing station if you can’t even get the basics right? Let’s encourage people to use public transport and then on the night of a major soccer match put insufficient trains on. We know what to expect but feck the travelling public!

Me and my friend got on the wrong bus and everyone else got dropped off and we go on the wrong one so we went down to tell the bus driver and he said it’s okay where do you need to go I’ll drop you there we are so grateful for that man he needs a raise this was at 17:00 we got dropped off 11b at November 15th 2024 give this man a raise please at least £200 - £100 raise please

Service is an absolute joke. Waiting on the 10m this morning. Comes up on app as cancelled. How can you just cancel a bus when there's no other bus that serves that route? This is a bus that goes to the royal hospital. Total disgrace.

Ever heard of hell week? Try hell year. That sums up the last twelve months of using Translink 'services'. Heads should roll for this chaos. Ah but no....I was forgetting - it is not a private company. No competition. This outfit do what they like, cause as much disruption as is possible, pull services off at will...and still keep their jobs and their license to operate.

I was on the 300 a service from aldergrove to Belfast today at 15.50. Thee drivers attitude was an absolute disgrace. I rushed out of the airport as the bus was due to leave. I got to the ticket machine and my card was declined. I noticed the queue for the bus had almost cleared and the bus would be leaving any second. I boarded the bus and asked the driver could I pay with cash he replied telling me " your supposed to buy a ticket at the ticket machine like everyone else". I explained my cad was rejected and handed him £10 for the £9 fare and he literally slammed my change down. Translink has seriously gone to the dogs.

We went first class on a train and the food and comfort was good but a rude staff member came and said to to the woman beside me "have you got any rubbish" which the woman replied "yes I do" so she said there was a tissue and the woman very rudely and disturbing fully said "I'm not touching your dirty tissue" unacceptable!!

Honestly, a complete joke of a "public" service. Constant time table changes, buses don't show up, buses are late, buses from city Hall dont open their doors until it's time to leave, app doesn't work, drivers are ignorant, some don't understand what an accelerator pedal is etc. Way more issues to note here.
Put a tender out or Sell the services/routes to a competitor, like so many cities do. Make it worth our while spending money on and relying on public transport!

10.36 pm from Belfast all stops to Lisburn was 45 mins late. Last week it was 20 mins late. I'm wondering how this inefficiency is acceptable. Its a huge embarrassment given the time and money invested in transport. Decided to write a review while waiting for the train, that wasn't even working either ...

10 minutes late is on time if you work for translink! Don't even make announcements anymore,it is just the norm. Do they realise people need to get connecting bus and train services.

Just travelling from lisburn to grand central station belfast. On tge train, as a disabled traveller I found all the staff very helpful and willing to provide the ramp fir access to and from tge train. Train comfortable and clean. Grand central station staff very helpful.

Translink are a national embarrassment.

Buses/trains don't show up when they are supposed to, if at all.
I've been on a train from Belfast to Derry; we got as far as Coleraine and they CHANGED THE DESTINATION of the train to Portrush instead! We were told if we want to get to Derry, get off in Coleraine and wait for the next service.

Timetables often do not match the journey planner. Half the services don't accept card payments while the others do. There are still no services using the new Dungiven bypass that we spent millions on. The app is a joke. The journey planner is pathetic.

Corruption. Incompetence. Greed. The hallmarks of Translink.