Company warned over late trains
A train company has been told to shape up after one in six services in the Black Country were found to be running late.
Transport authority Centro has "expressed disappointment" to London Midland after reliability between Birmingham and Wolverhampton fell from 90.4 per cent in November to 84.6 per cent last month. But the company said today it had made improvements and that on five out of the last eight days, services ran 100 per cent to schedule.
Services from Birmingham to Northampton were worse hit with a 21.7 per cent drop in reliability. Only two-thirds of services showed up within five minutes of the scheduled time. Figures released today also showed one in 20 trains on the Walsall line between Birmingham and Rugeley were cancelled.
The slump has been blamed on staff sickness in the run up to Christmas caused by flu. In a report to Centro's transport strategy committee, rail director Nigel Pennington said: "Centro has specifically raised the issue of train crew shortage with the operator.
"We are assured that London Midland now have a full complement of drivers and that service performance is returning to its previous level. There have been odd instances that have led to cancellations and these are being closely monitored by Centro officers who will continue to apply pressure to LM."
London Midland spokesman Matt Hurst said: "There were significant problems on the West Coast Main Line before and after Christmas that were beyond our control. Even problems in London can have a knock-on effect to services in the West Midlands."
