A MAN has spoken about his frustrations with train services after he revealed it takes him longer to travel to work than actually being in his workplace.

Simon Preston has to travel daily from his home in Redditch to the Sainsbury's Distribution Centre in Worcester for work - a commute he said should usually only take 30 minutes.

But recent train delays in services and cancellations have meant he must leave home four to five hours before starting work to ensure he gets there on time. 

A spokesperson from West Midlands Railway apologised and said the issues were down to several factors.

But Mr Preston said he must now take the bus from Redditch to Bromsgrove because the services between the two stations are now too unreliable.

"It is adding four to five hours onto my journey, and it's only a 30-minute train from Bromsgrove to Worcester," he said.

"I have to leave four to five hours early to allow time for the delays and cancellations.

"By the end of the week, you are knackered because you spend nearly as long travelling to work as you do actually at work.

"You spend like 16 hours out of the house."

In a bid to work around his commute and work, he has changed his working hours to fit the train timetable better, but he said there are still delays.

Mr Preston said he has been using the line for six years, but it has only been across the past few months when the services have become difficult to use.

"It is not just Worcester that has been affected by this, it's most train services now," he added.

"I wish that the CEOs put themselves on the trains to understand how bad the services are and what it is like for us to travel on them.

"Put yourself in the commuter seat."

A West Midlands Railway spokesperson said: “We apologise to passengers whose journeys have been impacted by a higher than usual number of cancellations recently.

“The disruption has been due to a combination of factors including high levels of staff sickness. We encourage any passenger whose journey has been delayed by 15 minutes or more to claim compensation via the Delay Repay scheme.”