SAD to say, but there's a dismally familiar ring about the complaint voiced by rail traveller Keith Bartlett over Worcester's Shrub Hill station.

The place has improved to a degree since the dark days when the Cotswold Line Promotion Group damned it - and Foregate Street - as "ramshackle, dilapidated, dingy, forlorn and depressing".

They're not the kind of adjectives you'd be happy hearing used about your own home.

Neither would you be pleased to hear your welcome there described the way Mr Bartlett recalls his visit.

What concerns us as much is the thought that countless other passengers have experienced the same - and many of them not Faithful City folk already wary of the station.

How many have returned to their homes around the world and told similar tales of their introduction to Worcester, or their farewell from it?

A Central Trains spokesman has apologised and promised to investigate the complaint.

"The toilets at Shrub Hill have been very badly vandalised and they're kept locked in order to maintain them," he admits. "They should be opened on request, but they are very short staffed there."

That's all very well. But we've heard similar complaints for donkeys years and nothing significant has been done to improve the service.

You pay a hefty price to travel by rail. The least you should expect is an inviting place. Worcester should demand it.

It needs somewhere to play a part in dragging drivers from their cars.

Instead, we have Shrub Hill station. It's not good enough. Far from it.