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.
Comments