Britain’s struggling railways are finally showing signs of improvement – although train companies are still cancelling more than 900 services per day, The i Paper can reveal.
More than 352,000 trains were part-cancelled or fully cancelled in the year between April 2025 and 2026, according to figures published by the Office for Rail and Road (ORR).
This equates to 4.6 per cent of services and is a slight improvement compared with 384,000 cancellations (5.1 per cent of all services) the year before. It means that 14 of the country’s biggest train companies have reduced cancellations in the past twelve months, including eight of the 10 now under public ownership.
All train companies are due to come under the control of the Department for Transport as their contracts expire and the Government nationalises the industry under the banner of Great British Railways.
Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander told The i Paper it was “great to see” that services are improving “across the majority of publicly-owned train operators”, but she admitted there is more to do.
