Great Western Railway
How much does Great Western Railway cost?
Prices are current as of 11 Sept 2026.
Great Western Railway has no in-app products on record in the United States.
10+ alternatives to Great Western Railway
| Great Western Railway |   Premier Inn Hotels |   Seatfrog: Rail Journey Planner |   Heathrow Express |   LHR London Heathrow Airport |   National Express Coach |   National Rail |   Greater Anglia Train Tickets |   ThamesLink Railway |   EMR - East Midlands Railway | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rating / 5 | 4.6 | 4.8 | 4.8 | 4.8 | 4.7 | 4.3 | 4.3 | 4.6 | 4.5 | 4.7 |
| Reviews | 98K | 99K | 48K | 23K | 11K | 9.5K | 5.6K | 2.3K | 1.3K | 1.1K |
| Released | 2011 | 2013 | 2017 | 2011 | 2011 | 2013 | 2012 | 2012 | 2014 | 2019 |
| One-time price | — | — | — | — | — | — | $4.99 | — | — | — |
The going rate for each plan in United States, in its own currency, shaded from the cheapest price on the row to the dearest.
Great Western Railway reviews
4.6 out of 5, based on 97,868 reviews.
What people like
- Clean design and easy to use
- No extra fees for booking tickets
- Friendly staff help when things go wrong
What they complain about
- Forces you to log in every time
- Tickets disappear or fail to load properly
- Broken location detection causes missed trains
Good
No fees - works well
Waste of space
What a useless app, for months now I’m unable to buy tickets via the app, just comes up with an error message. I guess they have given up as it’s being nationalised, but then again First are useless at most things, they love to blow their own trumpet
Good but not perfect
It’s a good app, just occasionally logs off and it’s annoying specially when you are in hurry.
Slow, inconsistent
Frequently logs me out, often errors out at payment, and generally slow.
GWR is the best train in town
I love GWR because it has high speed the 802 is my favourite
Worked fine
Dunno what went wrong with all the people complaining about booking with a foreign cell phone. It worked for me while having been in the UK simply with my e-mail address. I set up my account on the website and could then login the app on my phone. Ticket purchase went smooth. Have them saved to my wallet. Of course, it will only turn out if everything is really fine once I got on the train 🙂
Always logged out
The app has changed so that you are always logged out and now have to log in each time you want to buy a ticket. I nearly missed a train while trying to buy a ticket because of this. I think the app kept trying to log me in with the Delay Repay website password - also crazy that GWR makes you have a different password for that.
Extremely Bad
Fell for the con. Absolutely appalling. When I return to the US I will never tire of warning people to avoid at all costs.
Requires connection & sign in
App now requires a login EVERY time you open the app, which requires an internet connection which you may not have, in order to simply view your tickets. This defies the point of an App and needs fixing urgently.
Not bad
I like the GWR app, but I suggested improvements years ago and there’s been no progress. For example - why can’t you have a ‘buy again’ option or ‘favourite journeys.’ Also, I have to add my railcard every time I book!
Works as needed
No issues. Good layout.
An error occurred
Unable to ever buy a ticket since it always says a technical error occurred. No idea why!
Nice and easy.
But would be nice if you could book a train to and From Newbury rather than next station along It would also be nice if your travelcard stayed on your profile
Disjointed and painful
Can you please tell me why you’re selling me a train ticket with included PlusBus bus travel to the station, but then forcing me to travel to the station beforehand to collect a valid ticket? I’ve now had to pay twice to catch the bus. This is a disjointed experience, and you were insufficiently clear during the ticket purchase that I’d need to travel to the station beforehand. Could I suggest two improvements: - Deliver the PlusBus QR code into the app, so the end-to-end customer experience works - Pending that, make it much clearer to your customers attempting to purchase the PlusBus add-on that they will be required to collect it beforehand Apart from that, your app is fairly decent, but with one issue: you make it very difficult to return to a previous search (including time & date) so comparing journeys is a huge hassle - as is returning to a search.
Alright
Was working well until update. Now every time I leave the app, I have to log back in again. It’s alright if I’m not in a rush, but if I’m panic buying a ticket, definitely a hindrance. Please fix!
Better than National rail app
Always works better than the national rail app
Bug with journey dates and ticket access
I booked a journey in June, which I then rescheduled for September. In the app the journey doesn’t show in upcoming, only previous journeys so I’m unable to access the ticket. I’m posting this review to make them aware and hopefully the developers fix this.
Constantly logs out?
Great, other than having to log in every time I use it.
Was good , now bad!
"An error occurred - please try later". This has been happening for days now - off to Trainline.....
Constantly signing me out
I have to login every time I open the app which isn’t convenient when I need to find a ticket quickly. It also doesn’t save the password in my Apple password manager which is annoying. The whole point of an app is that you shouldn’t need to login often
Friendly service
Being visitors to the country, we were a little apprehensive trying the trains, but everyone has been super friendly and helpful.
Can’t purchase tickets
Since their last major updates, I cannot purchase tickets anymore, because button “pay” never becomes active. I reported the bug more than once and months later I had no answer and the app keep updating but without solving the problem
Big mess
Cant log in to site, to do anything, was looking at a picture of my e’ticket’s and they disappeared never to be found again. No access to account either. Seems i no linger exist😳
Disappointing
Have to sign in every single time I open the app. Could do with displaying which platform a train is on.
Stop logging me out!
App works well enough, but it keeps logging out. Incredibly inconvenient when travelling by train and needing access to tickets. It’s now necessary to copy to Wallet.
Clean/nice staff
This company never fails to impress although at the moment I’m experiencing difficulties trying to sign in on their app. Great cup of tea! Keep up the good work…
Absolutely awful
Impossible to apply voucher code. Totally unintuitive. No way of contacting anyone for help.
App bug
This app is absolutely terrible. If you’re from the US, there’s a location bug that says you’re not in the UK when you are. This has happened multiple times and made us miss a train, so it needs to be fixed immediately.
Good for train times, pants with their smart card
Not sure who their IT manager for the app and website is, but they need to up their game when it comes to try using their smart/touch card. You can’t reserve a set of tickets and upload to the card in one go. The helpline says clear cookies etc but it is consistently rubbish across multiple devices/OS. If you do spend time booking the same ticket over multiple days - you will always get an error when trying to load them to the GWR card. *June26 update* For some reason. Since their big app update it’s got worse. Have to log in EVERY time you want to see tickets/railcards etc. which is great if there’s a data signal but a lot of times the train is in a data black spot and you have to go through hoops to logon to the trains flaky wifi.
Functioning but frustrating to use
This app just about does the job, but I’d hugely frustrating to use.. I it’s slow down update information about trains and the primary function the tickets are really badly implemented.. they don’t support apple wallet either.. when you present your ticket on the train for a booking for say 3 people, you can’t just scroll from ticket to ticket and the buttons on screen are poorly placed and difficult to tap so it causes frustration for both you and the ticket inspectors. If they had the ability to use apple pass / wallet you could just scroll there with tickets added from the app.. please update and modernise, it’s like an app from about 2012.
Ease of use
Easy to use. Clearly presented
Booking doesn’t work
Gets to the Review Order stage and just sits with a spinning icon.
Buggy, and doesn’t recognise my email address as valid
Buggy, and doesn’t recognise my email address as valid.
Exeter Central
Some of the train times on the planner have been incorrect. When we arrived at the station to catch the train shown on the app, the train did not exist.
Easy to use
I like the elegant design. And somehow very local
Useless - App incompatible with older phones
Latest updates to this App no longer work on older iPhones rending apps useless as cannot continue to use older version of app!
If it’s not broken don’t fix it
Used to be a great app but since it’s been updated you have to log in every time you open the app to get your tickets or see your journey. Very frustrating, especially as it requires the internet to log in and doesn’t save your password anymore, so if you are on a train with no signal, this can be very stressful when being asked to show your ticket and it won’t work
Convenient
No need to pick the ticket at the station
Avoid
They are late so often and then make it so difficult to file your Delay Repay claim (with broken webpages, denial of claims for spurious reasons, etc). AVOID!
Disappointing user experience
The app feels unnecessarily frustrating to use. Each time I try to purchase a ticket or access any part of my profile, I’m redirected to a login page in Safari rather than staying within the app. This creates a lot of friction and defeats the purpose of having a dedicated mobile app in the first place. It’s also unclear why basic profile access can’t be secured with modern methods like two-factor authentication, instead of requiring repeated full logins just to perform simple actions. Most disappointing of all, after paying £5.9K for an annual ticket, it’s not even available for use on a mobile device. That feels like a significant missed opportunity and out of step with what users expect from a transport provider today.
Spam
Just tried to look at my ticket in the app and got bogged down in a flood of marketing spam. @GWR - in case you’re not yet aware - SOME PEOPLE HAVE A TRAIN TO CATCH
Only works 50% of the time
Website is a total nightmare, so not a good backup. I’ll look for other apps to buy train tickets. It’s not supposed to be as hard as this.
Great Western Railway FAQ
- Is Great Western Railway free?
- Yes. The app is free, in all 149 countries it sells in, and it sells nothing inside it.
- Does Great Western Railway have a free trial?
- No. None of its offers (US) come with a free trial.
- What are the best alternatives to Great Western Railway?
- Premier Inn Hotels (4.8 from 99,013 reviews), Seatfrog: Rail Journey Planner (4.8 from 48,167 reviews) and Heathrow Express (4.8 from 22,791 reviews).
Great Western Railway download
Last updated 1 month ago.
Great Western Railway sells in 149 countries. It was released 14 years and 11 months ago, on 13 Oct 2011. It holds a 4.6 rating from 97,868 reviews.
Supports 1 language: English.
How much does Great Western Railway make?
Third-party estimates for the last 30 days, worldwide — not the store's own figures, which Apple publishes for nobody.