Train services for passengers in Lichfield have not been good enough, a boss at West Midlands Trains has admitted.
Major disruption to services in and out of Birmingham New Street yesterday (29th October) saw commuters struggling to commute to and from Lichfield.
Some passengers who did manage to get on rush hour trains found themselves stranded at Blake Street station with promised rail replacement buses not in place.
Francis Thomas, head of corporate affairs at West Midlands Trains, admitted the disruption was not acceptable.
“We wholeheartedly apologise to our passengers who have been caught up in disruption this week and whose journeys have not been as good as they should have been,” he said.
“The timetable we were required to introduce in May 2019 did bring many benefits and has allowed us to carry 150,000 more passengers across our network.
“Unfortunately the timetable also brought in a layer of complexity. This has meant that when something goes wrong on the network, the knock-on effects are more significant and the disruption caused is greater than it would previously have been.
“This is what has been happening this week.”
Passengers have been warned that further disruption could take place until the weekend.
Mr Thomas added: “We fully acknowledge this timetable is not working as it should be.
“We are taking steps to fix it as quickly as we can by reducing this level of complexity at the next timetable change in December.
“Some of this week’s problems have been caused by shortage of available train crew and we are doing all we can to mitigate this.
“We have been deploying driver managers and managers with conductor competency to cover gaps wherever possible and we are continuing to work on solutions.
“We are working extremely hard to improve our current performance but while this process continues we offer our sincere apologies to passengers who have experienced issues with their journeys.”
