TRAIN operators have defended their performance figures after a recent survey by a national newspaper revealed that six railway stations in West Wiltshire are among the worst in the country for train delays.

Analysis of 2.8 million train journeys by the Sunday Times showed stations on the rail routes from Cardiff to Portsmouth, Bath Spa to Weymouth, and Taunton to Reading are regularly hit by delays of more than 10 minutes.

Among the stations worst affected are Bradford on Avon (16.5 per cent), Warminster (15.1 per cent), Dilton (14.7 per cent), Westbury (12.1 per cent), Trowbridge (11.3 per cent) and Pewsey (10.7 per cent).

The routes are mainly served by South West Trains, which is owned by Stagecoach, and the Great Western Railway, which is part of FirstGroup, and which manages all of the stations involved.

GWR spokesperson, James Davis, said: “Almost nine in ten of our services arrive within 10 minutes of the advertised time, however, we know how important punctuality is to our passengers. That is why we set ourselves challenging targets for improvement, and when we fall short of those standards, it is right that we compensate accordingly.

“We recognise that there have been significant infrastructure challenges on key parts of our network. Everyone at GWR and Network Rail is determined to see improvements, and we are working hard with Network Rail to help them deliver improvements for us. The Great Western network is currently undergoing its biggest period of investment since Brunel.”

A South West Trains spokesperson said: "We operate one of the busiest railways in Europe with nearly 1,700 services and half a million passenger journeys per day. National industry figures show South West Trains’ performance is in line with the national average and over 87% of services arrive within five minutes of their scheduled time.

“Punctuality figures will always represent the combined performance of train operators and Network Rail and many of the causes of delays to this service are outside of the control of South West Trains."

A spokesperson for the Rail Delivery Group, which represents train operators, said: “National figures are already online for all to see and individual train operators’ information will follow by next April.”

Only stations with at least ten arrivals a day were included in the analysis, taken from figures recorded on Network Rail’s database. The figures were broken down by hour and day of the week and show punctuality in the peak morning rush hour is actually among the best all day.

Tuesday evening appears to be the best time to avoid travelling by rail, with almost 50 per cent of trains arriving at least a minute late and 15.2 per cent arriving at least five minutes late or cancelled.

Friday evening, when most commuters are looking forward to the weekend, is almost as bad a time for travelling on a train.