West Midlands rail growth meets questions over delays

Local TV

Official figures show passenger numbers on London Northwestern Railway and West Midlands Railway rising faster than the national average, helped by new trains and extra services. At the same time, regulator data records stubborn delays, cancellations and a high volume of compensation claims. This report examines whether the rail boom signals a real recovery, or a busier version of the same old problems on West Midlands tracks.

Transcript

00:00Official figures put West Midlands Railway and London North Western among the fastest-growing

00:06operators in the country, with millions more journeys in just a year. Much of that growth

00:12is on long-distance routes into London and on busy leisure weekends, helped by new electric

00:17trains and more services. The rail regulator still records performance below the national

00:23average on punctuality and cancellations, so there's a clear tension between packed

00:28trains and patching reliability. So what we're seeing at the moment is a massive increase in

00:32the number of people using trains. I think we're looking at people who want green alternatives,

00:37it's become a really important part of people's planning processes where they want to take a

00:42green mode of transport and to do that they're choosing to take the train. We've seen a 12%

00:47increase year on year in people travelling by train across the West Midlands and for that reason we're

00:53really excited to be developing our service and introducing new trains and new carriages

00:59which give people extra space with which to travel. More passengers on the network means more money

01:05through the system, full carriages on key routes and a heavier strain on stations that already feel

01:10crowded at peak times. When trains are busy and a service runs late or disappears from the board,

01:16that disruption lands on workers trying to get to shifts, students getting to lessons and families

01:22travelling for leisure. Some passengers describe a sense that the network is back to life while

01:27others talk about standing room and missed connections. So what we're seeing at the moment

01:33I think is a real return to the office following the pandemic. Post-pandemic passenger numbers on the

01:38trains dropped significantly but what we've seen in the last couple of years and particularly the last 12

01:43months is a real return and people going back to their offices and more and more people actually

01:49heading out less working from home. We're particularly seeing this on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays

01:55which are our busiest days for commuter travel but we're also seeing massive increases in people using

02:00the trains at the weekends. Saturday and Sunday the leisure market particularly here in the West Midlands

02:07and travelling down to and from London as well are both significantly up and that is a big driver

02:13behind the increases we've seen. Alongside the growth story regulator data shows this operator cancelling

02:20a higher share of services than the national average with hundreds of thousands of delay compensation

02:25claims in a single year. New trains and extra capacity sit next to passengers still filing claims

02:31for disruption. That leaves a basic question about accountability and about whether the system

02:37is rewarding performance or just keeping trains moving at any cost. I think the 12% increase year

02:45on year in passenger numbers is an indication that as much as people like to complain about the trains

02:50I think that people are coming back and we are seeing more and more people using them

02:54and that's the trend we hope will continue into 2026.

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