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Commuter tracks Southeastern train delays from Chatham to Cannon Street, London

An angry commuter has taken to tracking his train after getting fed up of being consistently late for work.

Robert Berry catches the 7.22am train from Chatham to Cannon Street every weekday and has found that 75% of the time, the service has been late arriving in London.

The train leaves Broadstairs at 6.24am and is due in the capital at 8.17am, but out of the 44 journeys Mr Berry has made since December 14, 34 were late by up to half an hour and two were later than half an hour.

Train services are disrupted. Stock picture
Train services are disrupted. Stock picture

Only two arrived on time, three were early and four were cancelled meaning Mr Berry had to catch a train to Victoria and get the tube across London.

Mr Berry said: “I was getting annoyed at always being late to work and started tracking it to see how bad they are performing.

“If it’s a minute late, I’m a minute late, and where I’m paid hourly I’ve lost £300 in earnings.”

From Thursday, January 14 to Monday, February 1, the train was late every day.

Today it was announced that Southeastern is ranked among worst rail services in country, according to Which?

Southeastern allow people to claim money back if they have been delayed by more than 30 minutes, so Mr Berry has only been able to claim back £8.

Where he is working late to make up for the lost hours, he said he is now missing out on time with his fiancée Terri and two-year-old son Tommy.

“He gets really excited when I come home but lately that doesn’t seem to happen because he’s already in bed when I get home,” he said.

The 30-year-old, who works in investment management, said the trains have been consistently late since he started getting the train in August.

His previous job in Canary Wharf meant he was able to drive to work along the A2.

Mr Berry added: “I got the earlier train on Wednesday, which gets me to work 45 minutes early, and it arrived in London one minute early. I just want them to pull their finger out.”

A spokesman for Southeastern said: “We apologise for delays to the 6.14am from Broadstairs to London Cannon Street. Over the last few months, the service has been affected by a number of issues – mainly infrastructure related, these include a number of track circuit failures, fatalities and signal problems.

“We are aware that current performance is not good enough and are working with Network Rail to do all we can to improve it.”

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