One in four trains late to this West Midlands railway station

A quarter of trains at Worcester’s busiest railway station were late, according to the latest figures.

Data from the Office of Rail and Road (ORR) shows 25.2 percent of trains at Worcester Foregate Street station failed to arrive within three minutes of their scheduled arrival time.

Figures for August 23 to September 19 also show 5.5 percent of trains meant to arrive at Foregate Street were cancelled.

Foregate Street is the busiest station in Worcestershire, with around one and a half million passenger journeys recorded annually.

Two train operators run trains from the station, with West Midlands Railways performing better than Great Western Railway (GWR) over the period in question, according to the data.

The ORR’s data shows that West Midlands Railway arrived late 20.4 percent of the time and were cancelled 2.6 percent of the time, compared to 34 percent of late trains and 10.4 of cancellations for GWR.

A West Midlands Railways spokesperson said: “Running a reliable service is our key priority and, while the majority of our services run to time, we are dedicated to working with industry partners to improve performance in Worcester.

“There are many reasons why an individual service may be cancelled, including adverse weather causing flooding, track defects and police incidents on the railway.

“Any passenger whose journey is delayed by 15 minutes or more for any reason can claim compensation via the Delay Repay scheme.”

Network Rail is carrying out track renewal work between Worcester Foregate Street and Hereford between Monday, October 26 and Friday, October 30 to improve service reliability.

A GWR spokesperson said: “We know how frustrating late and cancelled trains are, and we’re sorry to customers in Worcester who were affected during this period.

“Services were disrupted by several incidents, including a signalling and telecoms failure in the Gloucester and Worcester area, a lineside fire at Kensal Green and a fatality at Twyford.

“We continue to work with our partners Network Rail to make the railway more resilient, and it is pleasing to see the number of cancellations fall in the latest period.”

GWR pointed out that while only 66 percent of its trains arrived within three mins, around 90 percent of all services arrived within 10 mins of their scheduled times.