Shropshire Star

Shropshire passengers hit as 200,000 trains are cancelled in a year

Frustrated rail passengers in Shropshire and Mid Wales were among those who suffered as more than 200,000 trains were cancelled last year, figures released today reveal.

Published
A London Midland Train pulls in to Telford Station

Commuters in London and the South-East were the worst hit with nearly 90,000 trains failing to arrive.

But at number seven in the top 10 of worse performing train operators for cancellations was London Midland which runs the service from Shrewsbury to Birmingham, while at number 10 was Arriva Trains Wales.

London Midland cancelled 14,638 train journeys. Its trains take commuters from Shrewsbury, through Wellington, Telford, Shifnal, Wolverhampton and on to Birmingham where passengers can change for London Euston.

Arriva, which runs trains on the Shrewsbury to Chester line, Shrewsbury to the west coast of Wales via Welshpool and Newtown and Shrewsbury to Cardiff via Church Stretton and Ludlow, cancelled 8,447 train journeys.

Over the past 12 months Arriva Trains Wales suffered from the storms that hit the Welsh coast in the spring. The rail line was ripped apart by the high seas at Towyn in Mid Wales leading to months of replacement buses.

London Midland spokeswoman Lindsey Preece said: "Every day our aim is to run all 1,300 services in our timetable. And we apologise to our passengers and are sorry when we cancel a train. Over the last 12 months we ran 97 per cent of all our services and reliability has improved throughout this year. Our focus is to continue to improve our service to London Midland passengers."

The figures were put together by the TSSA union. The union analysed figures which were supplied to Network Rail by the train operators.

Union leader Manuel Cortes said: "These figures show the private rail firms are failing to deliver for passengers when it really matters, particularly for those in the South East who pay the highest fares. Late trains are bad enough but cancellations on this scale are unacceptable."

London train operators Southern, South Eastern, First Great Western and South West Trains occupied the first four places in the top 10 "no show" list of shame revealed by the TSSA transport union. There were almost 35,000 trains cancelled by Southern. The firms were followed in the list by First Scotrail, First Capital Connect, London Midland, Great Anglia, Norethern Rail and Arriva Trains Wales.

A spokesman for the Rail Delivery Group, representing Network Rail and train operators, said that across the network passengers were "now making 600 million more punctual journeys than compared to 15 years ago".

Arriva Trains Wales made no comment.

Sorry, we are not accepting comments on this article.