West Midlands Railway Reviews 

Cancellations and delays literally everyday... Hot weather, rain, snow, signalling problems, lack of train crew and other...

The service for the line that I live on is regularly cancelled for vague reasons, often involving service faults or missing staff members.

When it does work, the service is very good and the staff are polite, respectful, and helpful. But, again, I can't consider this good service if literally half of the trains are cancelled every day.

The customer service from the company itself is genuinely atrocious. WMR customer service agents appear to have much less of a clue about service times, stations, or lines than I do. Respectfully, also they tend to have very thick South Asian accents that make communicating in English difficult. I can only conclude from this that WMR has outsourced its customer service to a South-Asian call-centre-- it is unfortunate that the savings WMR make from this are clearly not spent on hiring enough staff or maintenance crew to run an train service.

Leaving my views on the Starmerite Labour Party aside, it is a shame that bringing WMR into 'public ownership' has somehow failed to improve on anything.

Screw this shit show. Cancelled, delayed, and in a heatwave! Took 45 minutes to get from Wolverhampton to Birmingham, and kept cancelling trains like it was a hobby. In this hot weather, that's NOT what you want to be doing, especially as people are more irritable, and hot. You're increasing their risk of heat induced illnesses and your causing an inconvenience. There wasn't even a general given reason for the cancellations other than "hot weather". Screw you for all the crowds, screw you for cancelling, screw you.

So hot in the train. Conditioning is very bad. Two different temperatures inside and outside of the train

Booked and paid for tickets to be told next day (15 hours before catching train) that the last train has been cancelled due to a member of staff not being available. Can you believe that
A. They couldn’t get another member of staff to fill the role in 15 hours.
B. There isn’t any standby staff.
C. They are so unprepared, they cancel trains and are happy to cause real problems for the public.
I’m really struggling to understand how companies are allowed to be so incompetent and chaotic with no thought for its customers. Sadly, this isn’t the only train company with the same morals, ethics and unaccountability. The country needs a good look at these woeful companies.

What's the point in saying a train leaves at a certain time, then the train leaves a minute before that😂. No point in train drivers

Trains cancelled, sorry ‘delayed’.
It’s a scam this company uses. If my 07:20 doesn’t turn up (as usual) but the next one does, it’s announced at the ‘delayed 07:20’ They treat you like idiots.
Escalator at Snow Hill broken and closed off for months. The sooner this is privatised the better. Surely it can’t get any worse??

Do not use was left waiting nearly 3 hours in sun I fell sit trainers cut my arm was told to get out of waiting room by staff

I put in a delay reclaim on Friday due to the train being delayed over 30 minutes and then being cancelled on the way they refused the claim saying that there was no delay on that train. I had to bye another ticket for the journey as the train was that late

Best value tickets London to Manchester
The journey involves a change at Crewe, but offers a huge discount on the overpriced Avanti West Coast direct train fares. I saved over £160 on the last 2 trips.

I gave 1 star as I can’t give zero, if I had any other choice I would not use west midland, they couldn’t organise a p*ss up in a brewery, two train an hour and can’t even achieve it, apparently staff shortages. They know exactly what they are doing, cancelling the train that means a 25min delay so they don’t have to pay out delay charges. What a joke.

I WOULD GIVE A 0 STAR IF POSSIBLE. INCOMPETENT DRIVER NOT DOING HIS JOB.
Absolutely appalling service. I booked a train Birmingham to London. There was a delay unfortunately, before Euston Station. When the train finally started moving, the driver realised he was on the wrong track. So the train and its passengers had to go back to Wembley.
The driver was supposed to go to the back of the train, he took his sweet time to go from the front to the back. There was an announcement asking were the driver was, it was taking that long. Then once in Wembley, the driver had to cross the length of the train to go the fron control room. I had booked theatre. I was so late. The theatre didn't refund the ticket, 80£. I had other things planned, it ruined the entire day and I wasted a lot of money. I try very hard to save money. I allow myself something for myself. And people incompetence ruined.
I didn't even get a refund.

If I could give -1000 rating, I would. Been using their services for 3 years and was always forced to deal with huge delays, last-second cancellations, and staff that could not give a damn about their customers. When I have tried to formally complain via email, they were so nice... to pass me from an operator to another. They ask for money, but they don't deliver the service worth that money. Appalling. Disgusting. And utterly disappointing. If you can, avoid.

Cheese and onion express. Kids screaming, loud music no staff. English people vaping.

It’s a joke. Keep getting worse, but still keep charging more and more money. Worse service ever. A complete nightmare

Disgraceful..... I travelled home from Birmingham yesterday. There were two carriages and they were overcrowded with people having to wait for next train. The situation was unsafe and unpleasant. Yet you still charge for this........

Had a great experience on the train with Paul today and another gentleman. Great service, kind people, both helped three blind people. Clean train, chatty and cheerful. Very helpful. Couldn’t recommend anymore

Delayed train over half an hour and because its a return ticket only entitled to 25% compensation. Ridiculous company

I use this service at a cost of £11.60 a day 3 times a week . Constantly late and 2 carriage service ever day at 17:56 - the busiest time of the day . Not everyone can get on it’s so crammed full . I sent a spreadsheet of my experiences over 6 months - no one replied.

The absolute worst train company I have encountered. I would have awarded zero stars if that was an option. Okay, many train companies have delays and cancellations. I am probably being too accommodating, but I can live with some train delays and the odd cancellation. What I can't live with, is when West Midlands Railway (WMR) go out of their way to prevent paying justified and fully evidenced DelayRepay claims. Their excuses for not paying (despite all the tickets evidence and intel being provided) are spurious. They contradict themselves, they are pernickety, and their DelayRepay system is a counter intuitive nightmare preventing you from making the very amendments that WMR state you need to make to progress the DelayRepay claim. Its shambolic. I suspect they have a quota for how many DelayRepay payouts they do per month, so that even when genuine cases and all evidence provided, they will fabricate a reason not to pay out. Please avoid WMR at all costs. You are better off paying a bit extra and using Avanti West Coast. I have had no issue claiming DelayRepay compensation for late trains from Avanti West Coast.