MALVERN’S MP has met with the boss of West Midlands Trains to discuss a serious decline in the rail service between Worcester and Hereford.
Managing director Ian McConnell travelled by train to Malvern to brief Dame Harriet Baldwin on the troubled service after the MP raised the alarm on young people being left stranded at stations on their way back from college.
Ian discussed the state of the service which is seeing one in ten trains cancelled owing to signal issues and the availability of train drivers.
Dame Harriett called for the urgent meeting following a significant increase in complaints, especially from parents who were concerned about their children children travelling to and from Hereford for college.
The pair discussed the challenges of improving working practices to ensure that more drivers are available to work.
The Worcester depot has a quarter of the workforce unable to work at the moment leaving weekend cover almost impossible to deliver.
Dame Harriett said: “I am grateful that Ian took the time to come to Malvern to meet with me and he shares my frustration that the Worcester to Hereford service is the worst in his business.
“I understand the recent pay deal agreed by the Government will make it even harder to encouraged staff to do overtime or cover holidays and I will be writing to the Secretary of State for Transport setting out my concerns.
“We both want a fit-for-purpose rail service and we agreed that leaving children stranded in Hereford is unacceptable.
Rail chief, Ian McConnell, says West Midlands Trains has pledged extra measures to ensure the resilience of the service including bus coverage. The operator has also met with Hereford education providers to brief them one to one.
The West Worcestershire MP added: “There are now more than enough trained drivers but the terms and conditions on which they are employed are clearly restraining a 21st century rail service.
West Midlands Railway (WMR) have apologised to those affected by cancellations on the Hereford Line.
The WMR spokesperson added: “We were pleased to meet with Dame Harriett recently to discuss the challenges we face and the steps we are taking to address them.
“We are committed to improving our performance on the line and we have developed an action plan to increase the number of drivers we have available in order to run a more reliable service.”
