'Trains are so bad I've stopped booking meetings'

Chris Taft uses Transport for Wales services about two times a week to commute to London

A Shropshire rail commuter says he is no longer booking early work meetings as trains have become too unreliable to get him there on time.

Chris Taft, from Wellington, who travels by train to London about twice a week, said Transport for Wales (TfW) services were often delayed, causing him to be late.

"It’s incredibly stressful, I mean it’s horrible," he told the BBC.

Transport for Wales said it would be making significant changes to its timetables in December, and in 2025 would test new trains to replace its current fleet.

Mr Taft catches a TfW service to either Wolverhampton or Birmingham, before getting a connecting service to London Euston.

"Often this first train that I catch... is so late that I miss the connection both at Wolverhampton or at Birmingham, and that results, of course, in having to get a subsequent train, which results in being usually at least half an hour, sometimes an hour late into work," he said.

"It's late so often that I’m now at the point where I’m not booking in meetings early in the morning at work, or I’m having to get the even earlier train, the first train out of Wellington, just to give myself a fighting chance of making it on time."

Last week, TfW services from Shrewsbury terminated at Wolverhampton instead of Birmingham International due to a fleet shortage.

Chief operating officer Jan Chaudry-Van Der Velde said the decision was "difficult" but had given engineers time to undertake repairs.

He added the company had a lack of trains, due to an accident between two of them in October.

Transport for Wales has faced a number of issues in 2024 that have seen trains cancelled or delayed

In March, trains were cancelled and replaced by buses after a landslip between Oakengates and Wellington, and services were cancelled on several occasions after the tracks at Wellington station flooded.

TfW said figures showed punctuality for all trains improved by more than 8% between April and June, compared to the same period last year, and customer satisfaction was at 88%.

Shaun Davies, Labour MP for Telford, has written to TfW and West Midlands Railway, which also runs services in Shropshire, to highlight his concerns.

WMR apologised to passengers on the Shrewsbury line whose journeys had been disrupted recently, and added that running a reliable railway was its top priority.