KIDDERMINSTER has been named the second most reliable railway station in Worcestershire in recent months.
And the rail firm operating the station has revealed a huge cash injection to improve the reliability of the fleet of trains stopping at Kidderminster even further.
Over the last 12 weeks, Kidderminster station has been ranked the 737th highest out of the country’s 2,639 railway stations for reliability, with 69 per cent of all trains arriving at the station being on time.
This marks a 176 place improvement compared to the previous three months.
However, Kidderminster has only been the 452nd busiest station in the country, meaning its performance still ranks around 300 places below how reliable it is.
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Only 2 per cent of trains departing Kidderminster have been 10 minutes late or more and just 2 per cent have been cancelled.
In addition, 21 per cent of all trains arriving at the station since mid July were less than five minutes late.
The data has been collected by rail reliability website OnTimeTrains.
Redditch station is currently the highest performing in Worcestershire, ranking 537th best in the country over the last three months.
West Midlands Railway, which runs Kidderminster Station, has told the Standard it has invested £70million to upgrade its depot in East Birmingham, which holds the Class 172 fleet which regularly travels to and from Kidderminster.
A spokesperson for the rail firm said these upgrades will reduce the time needed to maintain the train fleets based at the depot which will help to lessen the impact of disruption and improve reliability of the service at Kidderminster station.
The spokesperson added: “We run over 1,200 services each day and work closely with industry partners to continuously improve reliability.
“One of the ways we’re doing this is through our major £1billion investment in new trains and maintenance facilities, including our Class 196 fleet on the route to Hereford, our electric Class 730 fleet on the Cross City line, and major upgrades to our Birmingham maintenance depot, which will improve journeys for our customers across the West Midlands.
“The OnTimeTrains website measures the proportion of trains arriving at a particular station early, on time or less than one minute late. For each station, most of the trains recorded as delayed were 1-2 minutes late.
“Delays or cancellations can occur for a wide variety of reasons including industrial action, cable theft, weather and infrastructure issues.
“Any passenger whose journey is delayed by 15 minutes or more for any reason can claim compensation via the Delay Repay scheme.”
- WHAT do you think? Do you use trains to and from Kidderminster Station? How reliable do you find them? Email: [email protected] with your views.
