WORCESTER News have spoken at their ongoing frustration with West Midlands Railway (WMT) trains, after it was warned to get its act together or risk being stripped of the franchise.

West Midlands Mayor Andy Street has given the company to the end of January to improve its services or he will demand the company, which runs services from Worcester to Birmingham, loses the franchise.

Meanwhile Worcestershire MPs said they had lost their patience after broken promises to deal with overcrowding, delays and cancellations, with West Worcestershire MP Harriett Baldwin saying it should face fines, and city MP Robin Walker saying the company should freeze their fares, instead of going ahead with the planned new year price rise.

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Readers took to social media to have their say, with Chris Kyte calling it a “joke of a service” after cancellations he had on Monday night.

Leigh Evans said: “Everyday the train is late or cancelled.”

Gerallt Wheeler said: “Peak time cancellations recently, all due to a shortage of train staff. You’d think that they’d plan their staffing around the peak times. I’ve tweeted WMT a number of times and never even received a reply.”

Steve Bartley said: “The key word being ‘franchise’.”

Another reader wrote on our website: “These franchises should include penalty clauses in them that fine the operators if the don’t maintain an agreed level of service. How about £100,000 per day fine for a company that doesn’t maintain 95 per cent reliability. If they don’t maintain a certain level for a period they lose the franchise automatically.”

Liam Wozencroft added: “I’ve got to say I travel to Birmingham most weekends and apart from the recent strike I’ve had fairly good service - I expect I’ve just been lucky.”

WMT’s managing director Jan Chaudhry-van der Velde said extra carriages and timetable changes had been introduced, but recently the network was hit by incidents outside their control, such as signalling failures.