West Midlands Railway Reviews 

The staff are always helpful, but the company itself is being run into the ground. Services are frequently delayed and often short on carriages.

Before COVID, my route had a decent sized train every 10-15 minutes—now it's every 20-30 often with just two or three carriages. During rush hour (starting around 7.30am and again from around 5pm) overcrowding is severe, to the point where passengers are unable to move, with pretty regular incidents of people fainting or even falling out as doors open

Many thanks to the lovely ticket collector on the Birmingham to Shrewsbury 13.52 .
My friend and I had got on the wrong train and he was so understanding and directed us as to a new route.
Train was on time as well 👍

Come on guys, you can do better than this. Delays I can understand to appoint but 2 carriages on a rush hour train from Birmingham New Street to Hereford is completely in excusable!

I'll try and keep it short, 2 weeks ago we had prebooked a train from Euston London to Nuneaton. When we arrived at the station, 20 minutes before departure we were met with an announcement that the route was cancelled, it happens, there was bad weather. We tried to find a member of staff to help us with an alternative, there was no desk or direction so, we spoke to a very helpful member of staff from Avanti who told us we'd have to go to platform 7 to get assistance. Sadly the gates we're closed so we couldn't access the platform. After waiting for several minutes we spoke to another member of staff frpm Avanti who told us that the woman standing next to us worked for your firm, her badge was covered by her scalf. She told us we'd have to wait an hour and a half for the next train, no apology and quite unhelpful. As we walked away another member of staff offered us a place on another train that was leaving in the next few minutes but was a 2 hour journey as opposed to out 1 hour. We chose this option as the station was very cold. We were offered mo compensation or apology, unlike Avanti who we had travelled to the capital with who refunded part of our fare without us making a claim as we were 30 minutes late. Your online claims process is a joke, we have 3 people on one booking yet have to make 3 separate claims. I'd strongly suggest that you employ the same staff trainers that you competion at avanti update your claims system. More than disappointed.

Travelled from Euston to Stafford yesterday. Train was bang on time. Managed to get a sear despite it being busy. My only niggle was that absolutely no-one checked my ticket throughout my journey.

Non existent customer service

In spite of every ticket confirmation encouraging you to download the App, the Android App does not exist - the links take you to an error screen.

Also, the on-line version goes in continuous loop if you try to access previous bookings.

My daughter has just got on a train from Telford Central to go to Birmingham. My daughter has Autism, LD and Epilepsy. She has not long started to get the train herself and is absolutely beside herself right now.
When she got to the station the train was already in so she did not have time to get a ticket her usual way from the kiosk. She has tried to get one on the trainline app but struggled because of her Learning Disability.
The ticket officer must have been waiting for her, as she had not been out the house long enough to get a ticket. The ticket officer was very offensive and rude and asked her why she isn't displaying her difficulties/disabilities for everyone to see and basically called her liar.

My daughter has been handed a fine which has devastated her more. I have called WM Trains and low and behold there isn't anything they can do. I have been given a premium rate number to call (which I cannot afford to ring) to try and sort it out.

This is so bad and not disabled friendly or accessible at all.

This company is only consistent at one thing - delivering a sub standard transport service. I genuinely feel sorry for the staff who work on these trains day to day, who are generally friendly and helpful but undermined by bad management.

Trains are consistently delayed or late arriving at the destination, over promising and under delivering on schedules (lads, you can't run a service stopping at an extra two stops and still expect it to come in at the same travel time as one which only stops at major stations. When it is miraculously running to schedule, the service is only 2 carriages at peak time, resulting in dangerous levels of overcrowding.

The only reason this and other similar companies survive is because they have a captive audience.

I wish there was 0 stars to give to this service
Absolute crap!! Saturday 30 November super busy evening in Birmingham, trains cancelled and delayed
Passengers not getting to the destination that they paid for… dumped at stations miles from their original destination and paying for over priced taxis or Ubers or inconveniencing family members to collect them
The train service is diabolical
Get you acts together !!!!

Dirty trains, hardly in time, delayed or cancelled, must be the worst service in Europe!

Would give a 0 if possible. Yet again 2 and a half hour waiting in the cold with 3 young children due to complete incompetence from these people, I can’t believe these jokers just got a huge pay raise considering how bad it was to start with and some how it keeps getting worse.

If I could give negative stars I would. The worst customer care ever experienced. 21st century UK. Unbelievable.

Very poor experience lately with these train providers and I mean all of them. Trying to get to work on the 5.35 boarding and there is no announcement of cancellation to destination until the train started to move. There was a cancellation for London Euston at 05:20 but nothing about the 05:35. People would be more understanding if you notified them and update the app operators so they can filter it down. I am finding more and more regardless of the service there is no care given to the consumer. Diabolical treatment from train service on a whole, there is no drivers but they get paid more than nurses and there are more cancellations than I have ever known in my history of catching the damn things, but I bet there will be an increase in fairs and already planned reductions to services nice one!!!!!!!!

They do try their best to provide a good service, but for a long time, on the Snow Hill line in particular, they had have had issues with not enough carriages on services and low staffing levels. Services on part of the Snow Hill line were cut down from every 20 minutes to 30 minutes last year, as they said they wanted to run a more reliable service. Most of the issues before the timetable change still exist, though there appears to be less cancellations. It’s also confusing why there’s only four carriages provided from Dorridge to Birmingham at the most busiest time of rush hour morning, it’s exceptionally overcrowded.

This is absolutely unacceptable! It’s beyond belief that such abysmal service is offered in a country that prides itself on being a leader in technology and AI. The conditions we endure are on par with the most impoverished nations, yet we are charged exorbitant prices for tickets. It’s a disgrace and a complete failure on every level!

Had a cancellation due to lack of staff. From Birmingham Intl to Northampton my train wasn’t running and I needed to get to London. Had to get another train to get to my final destination.

Tried twice to get a Delay Refund and both times they’ve denied it.

Reasoning “Our Delay Repay scheme applies to journeys where there has been a delay of 15 minutes or more. We have checked your journey and on this occasion, we could not find a delay of 15 minutes or more.”

How the hell do you NOT have a record of cancellations?! That’s highly concerning and shows you do not care about your customers and are all about the money. All I wanted was a partial refund. That’s it.

If I could give minus number of stars I would.

Never booking them again.

7 year old son had to stand all way from Birmingham to wellington after exhaustive day out. Customer service didn't care. Totally neglected and negligent given the age of my son. Avoid and take your cars if you have kids!!!

This company is getting worse and worse.
On 12 Nov the 06:45 and 07:45 trains from Albrighton were cancelled. I had to get a taxi to Wton to get to Bham. On Wed 13 Nov the 06:45 , 07:45 and 08:39 were cancelled. Disgrace. All they seem interested in is running a decent service from Telford and Shifnal. That now goes 8 mins apart then 51 mins apart. What’s the point? May as well get rid of that express service and put a decent service calling at all stations. If there is a shortage of crew they always cancel the service through all stations and just run the one through Telford and Shifnal.

Constantly cancelling services blaming shortage of staff. They cancell peak trains an replace with a two carriage service. Last night the 5.20 from Birmingham was made of two carriages with no excuse or apology. This morning the train from Worcester to Birmingham the same thing. They know two carriages is totally insufficient and unsafe for those crammed in and standing. Totally unsatisfactory. They don't care!