A CUMBRIA rail station is in the bottom 10 in Britain for cancellations and delays. 

Rail operators blamed poor weather, staff sickness and industrial relations for the recent service at Oxenholme.

'On Time Trains' is a website that collects public data on delays and cancellations from the last 12 weeks and then ranks stations in England, Wales and Scotland from best to worst. 

Oxenholme Lake District was ranked 2,610th out of 2,619 stations. Only 25 per cent of trains were on time, 15 per cent were five to nine minutes late, 15 per cent were over 10 minutes late and 10 per cent were cancelled out of 7,846 services at the station. 

Oxenholme was the 538th busiest station on the network, with an average of 2,289 passengers a day. On Time Trains also shows historical data, and in 2023, there was an average of 1,320 entries and exits per day and 969 interchanges at the station. 

Three rail operators use the station. Avanti West Coast, Transpennine Express and Northern offer services that use the West Coast Mainline linking south Cumbria to Manchester, Edinburgh and beyond. Northern also operates the Lakes Line, which gives access to Kendal, Staveley and Windermere and becomes a busy tourist route in the summer.

“Our services continue to be affected by high levels of traincrew sickness and on-going industrial relations issues including strikes and overtime bans. I can only apologise for the impact these issues have on our overall performance in Cumbria," regional director for Northern Craig Harrop said. 

"During the latest four-week reporting period - covering 7 January to 3 February - over 94 per cent of services from Barrow-in-Furness and Windermere to Manchester Airport, operated as planned.”

Chris Jackson, managing director for TransPennine Express, said: "Since TPE’s transfer to DOHL (government operator) ownership, we have seen a significant reduction in cancellations and have improved reliability across the board.

READ MORE: Northern apologises for Lancaster/Carlisle to Barrow service

“The resumption of driver rest day working (RDW) has helped move performance back towards where it needs to be and in the most recent period – between January and February – more than 60 per cent of our services on the West Coast Mainline arrived within three minutes of the timetable schedule and more than 90 per cent within 15 minutes of the advertised schedule.  

“Unfortunately, on the same route, there have been several serious weather-related incidents that have caused disruption for our customers and affected the statistics.

“When these incidents happen, we work closely with industry partners to communicate the impact to our customers and do all we can to keep people on the move and get them where they need to be.”

An Avanti West Coast spokesperson said: “We have seen some short-notice cancellations on our network and we apologise to our customers for this.

“In recent months, we have experienced a shortage of train crew due to historic leave agreements, elevated sickness levels and ongoing industrial disputes. As with all operators, we also experienced issues during this period with infrastructure and weather-related challenges on the network, meaning that we had to cancel an increased number of services. This has had a bearing on our previously improved levels of performance.”