# ScotRail: New Official App — user reviews > 39 indexed App Store user reviews of ScotRail by ScotRail Trains Limited, rated 1.17/5 from 23 ratings. - Source: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/scotrail-new-official-app/id6788413784/reviews - App overview in markdown: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/scotrail-new-official-app/id6788413784.md - Rating breakdown: 5★ 0 · 4★ 1 · 3★ 0 · 2★ 1 · 1★ 21 ## Newest reviews (14 of 39) ### 1/5 — Downgrade *2026-08-05* The new ScotRail app is a complete downgrade from the previous one. While it may look more modern, it’s much less reliable in everyday use. The biggest issue is that my ticket barcode frequently disappears, meaning I have to waste time deleting the app, downloading it again, and logging back in just to access a valid ticket. This is incredibly frustrating, especially when you’re trying to catch a train. From a practical point of view, the old app was much better. It was simpler, more reliable, and just worked. This update feels like a step backwards rather than an improvement. Please focus on fixing the reliability before adding new features or changing the design. ### 1/5 — Useless and impractical *2026-08-05* It seems that if you look at the Home Screen the wrong way, the app will crash. Every time you open the app you have to re-log in, which is impractical for those who have to use ScotRail multiple times a day for commuting. When tickets are bought (Apple Pay does NOT work by the way), the app crashes every time I try to load my ticket. If the point of this new app is to persuade commuters to switch to Omio or Trainline instead, it has been successful! There were a plethora of issues with the old app, and it seems like none of them were solved with the new one. If they were solved, I guess I would not know because I have not been able to use this app for more than 2min without it crashing. Hope the abundance of issues gets solved soon. ### 1/5 — Just Use Trainline *2026-08-05* More confusing app, difficult to use, more expensive - I also believe I was targeted by some kind of surge pricing. I looked for a return to Edinburgh, went off the search and decided to search the same times etc again and all the train prices were higher. Also the return tickets which I tried to purchase 1-2 weeks in advance would only combine 2 singles instead of being a cheaper return train, making an intended journey stupid expensive. Highly recommend just using Trainline, it is far easier to use and less of a scam. I have no idea why they went for a new app but it is simply a circus, a clear showing of ineptitude and idiocy. ### 1/5 — Keeps crashing, awful UI *2026-08-05* As soon as I bought my ticket the app crashed and won’t reopen. Switching to this broken app right after the £10 minimum fare for not having a ticket was introduced sure seems a bit convenient! I also hate that you can only see trains in 15 minute increments. I’ll be switching to the trainline app. ### 1/5 — Can’t get my tickets *2026-08-05* I have multiple sets of tickets for my upcoming trip to Scotland that I can’t access. Hundreds of dollars in tickets that are in limbo since the new app. I can’t even login to my account on my desktop computer as a backup. The email confirmation links don’t work. The new system is a total mess! The old one was beautiful!! I can’t imagine what it’s like for commuters and people who live there! ### 1/5 — So bad - use Trainline *2026-08-05* Tried to book my usual trip (Prestonpans - Dundee return). £80 on this app - £34 on Trainline. I’ve not used Trainline instead of ScotRail app for years. Won’t bother with this one again. Well done ScotRail👏👏👏 …Forgot to add that the email for transferring the old account to this one too so long to arrive that I created a new account instead🤦‍♂️what’s the point of the favourite journeys part when all it does is give you train times and doesn’t link through to buying a ticket?? I know the train times - that’s why it’s a favourite journey - but I still need to buy a ticket for it. But none of the info carries through to that part of the app so you have to add it all again manually. Next upgrade get a high school computing class to write it. They’ll do a better job ### 1/5 — Vibe-Coded For An Undisclosed Sum Funded By The Taxpayer *2026-08-04* As someone who leads IT organisations and builds enterprise apps, I consider this one of the worst products I’ve ever seen, coupled with a completely botched migration. If my designers had shown me this, I would have fired them and the product manager who signed off on it. The look and feel of this app is worse than what ChatGPT could generate in ten minutes. It isn't just astonishing; it reeks of corruption and overselling. Less than a year ago, ScotRail claimed they were losing millions to fare evaders, yet their numbers amounted to nothing more than "trust me bro." How many millions in taxpayer money did SilverRail’s CEO pocket for this cheap-looking, bug-ridden app and website? It's the oldest trick in IT consulting: charge for Google-tier engineers and let juniors vibe-code the actual product. It’s appalling, but even worse is how incompetently councils select their contractors. As taxpayers, we can only hope it’s mere incompetence, because the alternative is corruption and nepotism. This is the first app review I have ever written. Why? Because I’ve never been more disgusted by the sheer amount of incompetence funded by our steadily rising fares and tax money, all while we endure a continuous decline in service, quality, and hygiene. Chapeau! ### 1/5 — Utter incompetence *2026-08-04* How can an add update be so bad. How can the developers and management of this app be so incompetent. Who’s creates an entirely new app instead of updating the old one?! Having to download and install a new app and then reset your password when you’re opening the app and trying to buy a ticket is madness. There is no option to activate your tickets, so I have no idea how I’m going to use my ticket that I’ve paid for. When you are searching for times when booking there is no way to scroll through to earlier or later trains. When searching for live times, it only works for direct trains which never used to be the case. This is so bad, everyone who worked on it should be ashamed of themselves ### 1/5 — Disappointing *2026-08-04* Honestly Scotrail disappoints once again. The old app was so much better, in Live trains you can only see the direct trains and my daily commute to work is not direct , you cannot see the train’s journey before it arrives at your station, also you cant see the stops after your stop. Sometimes the app gives me only a train connection at Glasgow Central Station but i used to check later stops and if its enough time i would change at a different station on the same line and with less wait time. Now I cannot see that. Could you just leave all the features of the old app and just add whatever you wanted to add extra in the new one. There was no need to remove features that people used every day. Honestly it’s just easier to check your journey on google maps and buy a ticket from the machines. ### 1/5 — Worse than before *2026-08-04* I downloaded the app when it went live on 30th July. Despite being assured via email that I could use my existing login credentials, I had to reset my password in order to log in. The app then wouldn’t let me check live times between my home and work stations because they’re not directly connected. Then when I clicked the home button the app crashed and wouldn’t open again, so I had to re-download it and sign in again. The “more” button, where account details are kept, also caused it to crash twice before I could access that, but then tapping on the account button also caused it to crash. The update has improved things slightly but it still crashes if I press on the home button more than once. The old app, while not perfect, did allow me to save my home and work stations to check times, and would also let me scroll back through to the previous train due, which was useful. It was clunky, but at least it didn’t crash at a moment’s notice like the new one. I also don’t understand why ScotRail would release this app A) after bringing in the £10 minimum fare - surely do the app first and then the minimum fare to make sure people weren’t caught out B) on a Thursday morning when people are commuting to work C) In the middle of the Commonwealth Games when tourists would also be trying to use the app for the first time. ### 1/5 — App Keeps Crashing *2026-08-04* The app keeps crashing after I bought a ticket and now I can’t view my bookings. They also took away the feature to view earlier or later trains so you have to restart the booking if your original time selection doesn’t work ### 1/5 — Unnecessary loss of functionality *2026-08-03* Can’t scroll earlier/later trains. If searching Glasgow - Edinburgh it doesn’t show you until the last page if it’s Central or Queen St, previous app had this at a glance. When searching return trains it will default to the cheapest option on the outward train, technically a single, and then only allow buying a single for the return leg so if you’re unfamiliar with the trains and expected prices you pay almost twice as much as needed because the app tricks you into thinking you’ve selected the cheapest options. It also seems very buggy and signs me out every time I navigate away to a different screen, annoying when moving through the security gates and suddenly unable to bring up the barcode without a password faff. ### 1/5 — To bad they did not improve app *2026-08-02* 3 day since new app has been released. Keeps logging me out. Can’t display return ticket. Had to beg man at gate to let me in. ### 1/5 — Possibly the worst ticket buying experience ever. *2026-08-02* Having gone from an app with a slick and fast UI, where it was easy to navigate and buy tickets, this is a nightmare to use. Seearch for a journey to buy a ticket, select buy, get taken to another screen to search for your journey, which is now offscreen because, although it’s a minute past the hour and the train is at 14 minutes past, you can’t select anything earlier than 15 minutes past. Select later journey, pick ticket type, change from one adult to two, have to reselect journey and ticket type again. Buy ticket finally, no ticket in app. Close app, reopen app. No ticket. Totally kill app, restart app, finally ticket appears. Go to ticket. And have to navigate through maze of options to actually get barcode to open gate. What a horrible, horrible mess of an app. I haven’t even mentioned the horrific UI design, wasted space, terrible navigation, and lack of responsiveness, not to mention missing details and terrible activation and registration process. Did anyone actually test this app before uploading? I have no idea how this got through any kind of QA. I would say avoid at all costs - but as Scotrail now fine you for getting on a train without a ticket, and the ticket machines at the stations rarely work, you really don’t have a choice, unfortunately. ## Most critical reviews (10 lowest-rated) ### 1/5 — Wick version 2.2.0 August 8 *2026-08-09* Wick, population 6,913 isn’t important to ScotRail anymore it seems. Hasn’t been for multiple iterations of this new but worse app. ScotRail: go back to the Trainline like every other TOC in the UK. The new vendor clearly isn’t up to it. ### 1/5 — NO APPLE PAY *2026-08-08* Apple Pay doesn’t work with foreign cards. Please fix this. I’m not typing my card details EVERYTIME. App logged me out randomly while trying to get my connecting train. Tickets randomly disappear under the tickets tab and reappear later. My railcard doesn’t save when buying tickets. I need to select it EVERYTIME. Not good. ScotRail pushed a “buy before you board” program to discourage buying on board. That’s fine. The issue is they immediately pushed a TRASH app that doesn’t work. Conductors weren’t even briefed or explained how it works so they can’t help. Who’s in charge up there?? App looks nice tho. *screenshots your tickets until they fix this everyone or else you’ll be stuck* ### 1/5 — Usual Scotrail Embarrassment *2026-08-08* Honestly what more can you expect from Scotrail? They firstly couldn’t launch it properly as password resets wouldn’t come through. Now, tickets can’t be activated. Return tickets for Anytime Day Returns are not showing so you can’t get through the barriers. Shortcuts on the homepage can’t be clicked on. It’s a clunky app, which doesn’t flow particularly well. It automatically reverts to single tickets every time instead of remembering your previous choice like the last app, and doesn’t show your previous searches like the last one. Staff have advised that Scotrail are now managing the app in-house instead of using a third party which suddenly explains why it is so bad. Scotland’s national embarrassment. ### 1/5 — Worst update ever. *2026-08-08* After seeing horrific initial reviews that made it onto sky news they were that bad, I postponed my download of the new app and tried to use the old one (rip) for as long as possible. When that one forced me to download this one, I had no choice but to see what all of the complaining was about. For starters, finding train times is a nightmare. Unlike its predecessor which could save your favourite journey and show journeys on that line for the whole day, this one makes you type it in every single time and only shows you 4 at a time. This defeats the purpose of comparing journey times if you can’t see them! Then there’s the issue with how the app works itself. To be able to search for journeys, you have to put in every filter every time because the app itself remembers nothing! Time of travel, number of passengers, type of passengers, destination, railcards, ect ect all have to be put in every time you search. As you can imagine, when in a rush for a train this is nothing but a great pain in the a**. ScotRail, if you’re reading this, you’ve done an incredible job at proving your IT and app development team is as scandalous as your ticket prices. ### 1/5 — Can’t access tickets *2026-08-08* I bought tickets in July for travel in August and now can’t access them. ### 1/5 — Dreadful ‘update’ *2026-08-07* The old app wasn’t perfect, but this roll out has been a shambles. App frequently logs me out, return ticket qr codes don’t generate so have to speak to staff to get through barriers, qr codes are labelled ‘bar codes’ which they clearly aren’t, train delays not being accurately reported. On top of this I can’t quickly search for more than the next 3 trains in my favourite journeys. You used to be able to easily scroll a list, even in to the next day. You used to be able to check previous stops of a journey and see the where the train was in real time but I haven’t discovered this functionality yet. Maybe part of this is getting used to a new app and learning your way around it, but first week of using this app has left me with greying and receding hair (that could be an age thing tho!) ### 1/5 — Terrible *2026-08-06* Absolutely terrible, the previous app worked great and now Apple Pay doesn’t even work to buy tickets. I’ve had to start buying all my tickets on the website instead. ### 1/5 — The new version is so bad *2026-08-06* I don’t know why they updated the app there is so much wrong with the new version the user interface is really annoying to work with I can’t imagine how it is for people who never had the previous version ### 1/5 — Disaster *2026-08-06* Instead of lowering the ticket prices they spend money on useless new app. The old one was good enough . Who needed this ? Can’t see my return journey on the new app ### 1/5 — Not as user friendly *2026-08-05* Used today for the first time. You now need to tap on your railcard each time when booking tickets. Previous version automatically carried this out. When looking at train times you get the next trains for a set time around your return time. No option to look forward past this time window unless you go back and change your return time. Previous app you could click forward to look at other train times without going back and changing the return time. Less user friendly, more key presses which an app should work towards having less of. Previous app far better in both these areas highlighted. Obviously requirements capture and user review failed here. ## Most praised reviews (9 highest-rated) ### 5/5 — Funktioniert *2026-07-31* Funktioniert ### 4/5 — Bugs ! *2026-07-30* At least 2 bugs on first use. Adding railcards does not work. The contact us page also does not work. ### 3/5 — Missing the ease of the old app *2026-08-05* I understand that the new app will take time to perfect, so I am being patient with any bugs and teething issues, but some of the ease of the old app is missing. Being unable to check live journey times underneath your ticket, unable to view future journey times between stations that require a train change in the ‘live trains’ section, and having to manually add your railcard every time you purchase a ticket are issues that the old app didn’t have. I hope these are addressed, as these go beyond design decisions or early issues. ### 2/5 — Not needed *2026-08-07* Not sure why ScotRail have come out with a new app that does the exact same thing as the old app but worst. Live Train section used to allow you to do journeys and see where you needed to make transfers. Can’t do that anymore. Also bugged out on me while walking to the train, so I had to miss it because I’m not paying the new £15 minimum on-train fare. ### 2/5 — Somehow even more convoluted than the old one. Did they do any user testing at all? *2026-08-06* There are some improvements in this new version of the app- having departure times for favourite journeys easily accessible is nice- but: I’d guess that comfortably 95%+ of tickets bought via this app are day returns bought on the day of travel, where departure and return times are completely irrelevant. And yet to purchase this ticket type you are required to: 1: search for a departure time 2: search for a return times 3: select a departure time (often making sure that you don’t select the actual departure time of the train you’re getting as it may be unavailable for sale) 4: select a return time 5: NEW FEATURE! remember not to select the first presented option: BUYING TWO SINGLES 🤯 6: Pay for your ticket 7: Download your ticket 8: Activate your ticket I appreciate that for _some_ ticket types these steps are all necessary but for day returns there is absolutely no need to make people (people trying to catch a train!) search/select unnecessary departure/return times. If this were an edge case I’d understand but I’d put good money on day returns being far and away the most common type of purchase. This should be a 3 step process: Select stations, hit ‘day return for today please’, pay. ### 2/5 — More clunky than the app it replaced *2026-08-05* More clunky than the app it replaced and lost some useful functionality. The favourite journeys section on the home page is good in theory (although the old app had frequent searches as well) but when you select a train from it and click buy tickets it takes you to the tickets page without populating the journey details (so doesn’t save you any time and anything takes longer than just going to the tickets tab). Also, on the tickets tab you can only select 15 minutes in the future. So if you are on the way to the station at XX:17 looking for trains it won’t show anything before XX:30 even if there is a train. The old app had a “now” time that was more useful. ### 2/5 — Delayed Start *2026-08-05* I'm not sure who is testing this app or any Product Owners comparing it with the old version. In the old version, if my train was at 07:26 and the search was set to "Now", the 07:26 service would appear in the results regardless of whether it was 07:14 or 07:21. That no longer seems possible. The fixed time intervals mean that some earlier trains don't appear simply because you've passed the 15 or 30-minute mark. Also, when a train was displayed, I used to be able to see the earlier stations on the route - this would tell me if it’s left the previous station or not thus I could gauge how long my wait was going to be when trains are late. That information no longer appears either. Meh ### 2/5 — Not the same *2026-08-02* The app visually is decent at best. But when it comes to comparing it to the old one it’s horrible. The stations you choose don’t stay and you have to do the process of searching it up every time you need to book a ticket. I have to change my tickets so I don’t get charged a different price and I have to keep putting in my railcard every time too. When getting a return ticket, there shouldn’t be so much of a difficulty to find the return ticket, which I still can’t find by the way, and I assumed it may just be the same barcode but when trying it at the station it didn’t work. It also doesn’t keep my bank details saved so I have to keep putting it in every time as well, it’s really annoying especially if I’m in a rush. The live times for the trains, unlike the old app, don’t show previous stops, only the ones from the stop I’ve booked to and from. I don’t know what the new app is really for if it’s just worse than the old one. It would be great for all the issues pointed out to be fixed but highly doubt it’ll happen any time soon. Also if an AI gets added I promise many of the users will stop using ScotRail. ### 2/5 — Did the developers actually use the app before release? *2026-07-31* So disappointing. The whole point of the mobile app is to scan your tickets. The new app always shows the ticket version and you have to manually select the barcode every time 🤷‍♂️. If you are searching for tickets and want to see earlier trains - the “earlier trains” link has gone so you have to manually edit the time. Even worse - that then changes the return journey time 🤷‍♂️. And beware - on at least one occasion it “forgot” that I had added a railcard. All basic functionality the previous app had and it became apparent very quickly the new one did. Who tested this app???? --- *Data collected daily from the US App Store and indexed by [AppsHunter](https://appshunter.io/). User reviews are verbatim App Store reviews. Ratings, prices and chart positions refresh continuously; this snapshot is from 2026-08-27.*