A RAIL campaigner has become so ill waiting on cold platforms for delayed trains she has dumped public transport and bought a car.

Jackie Carey, of Yates Hay Road, Malvern, began her campaign to improve trains serving the town in November 2003 after problems with Central Trains terminating services between Hereford and Birmingham, leaving passengers stranded.

She used to work in Hereford until last December and faced delayed journeys.

But she said the final straw came when she started working in Worcester and waiting for delayed train at both Malvern Link and Foregate Street in cold shelters for up to an hour.

Mrs Carey she was subsequently getting colds and flu which was putting her job in jeopardy and has now reluctantly bought a car.

It comes after Worcester City Council's leader Stephen Inman branded Foregate Street a "disgrace" in Wednesday's Worcester News.

"I felt obviously very disappointed that against all my principles I had to finally resort to the internal combustion engine," said Mrs Carey.

"I live and work very close to the station and there'd be no reason in an ideal world I shouldn't be able to cover nine miles a day without having regular delays.

"Travelling by car is bliss by comparison - a journey that was very often taking me an hour only takes me 15 minutes."

Central Trains spokesman Gerald Burgess said while they were sorry Mrs Burgess had stopped using trains, journeys on the Hereford to Birmingham line increased by 13,000 this March compared with last March.

He said there was also works due for Malvern and Worcester stations, including a refurbished waiting room and coffee shop at Foregate Street and increased parking spaces and CCTV at Malvern Link.

"There was a pretty poor performance after Christmas and we can understand people's frustrations but we've made a rapid improvement and we're attracting more customers."