ONE in three passengers on First Great Western services suffered delays last year.

The company was joint second worst for punctuality in Great Britain along with Thameslink/First Capital Connect and South Eastern.

Only Southern passengers were delayed more, with 39 per cent affected. Delays also affected 29 per cent of CrossCountry passengers, joint ninth worst, and Chiltern Railways were joint 10th with delays for 28 per cent of travellers.

Only 48 per cent of First Great Western passengers said they were satisfied with the company, the fifth lowest rating.

The company surveyed 6,756 passengers between November 2013 and November 2014, including 575 who travelled with First Great Western.

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Commuter James Clark has travelled to London from Didcot Parkway for three-and-a-half years and is not surprised. said he was not surprised by the findings after travelling to London from Didcot five days a week for the past three and a half years.

The 43-year-old said: “My colleagues in London do not believe a service can be so bad when I call four times a week to say we are stuck or the train has broken down. If the service is about 15 minutes late they will not apologise; they feel they have to be about 25 minutes later to even bother.“It costs an absolute fortune for an appalling service.”

An annual season ticket from Oxford or Didcot to London Paddington costs £4,788.

First Great Western spokesman James Davis said: “Any piece of research can have some interesting outcomes but we really need to understand how the report was put together for it to be of value.

“Our recent National Rail Passenger Survey report scores us at an 81 per cent overall satisfaction rating, and our present punctuality rests just under 90 per cent.”