RAIL passengers travelling between Worcestershire and Birmingham are being warned to expect two more years of scenes like this on their peak-hour commutes while new carriages are built to lighten the load.

Commuter Hannah Nugent has regularly been posting pictures of her commute from Rowley Regis on the Birmingham-Worcester line and claims the overcrowding is an ‘accident waiting to happen’.

The pictures show hordes of passengers crammed into the aisles on carriages, with seats full, on the route which also serves Hagley, Blakedown, Kidderminster and Hartlebury.

Hannah says services are sometimes overcrowded even at off-peak times and says the problem has caused her to miss trains and be late for work – but it is the health of others that worries her.

In one tweet, she said: “Had to get a later train today as I couldn't fit on one before, now crushed in the corner, great way to start the day and going to be late!!! When are u going to listen and get more carriages before someone gets hurt!”

Another added: “Paid more for childcare today so that I could get an earlier train #nodifference. I feel like human rights are being questioned here. One pregnant lady next to me squashed.”

A spokesperson for West Midlands Railway said new trains would not be available until 2021 but added that the company will change timetables this spring in an attempt to tackle the problem.

She said: “We are aware there are some overcrowding issues on some routes and we have plans in place to rectify that going forward.

“There will be changes to timetables coming in May that we hope will alleviate the issue but they will not fix everything overnight.

“We have spent £700m on improving trains as part of a £1bn investment and we have trains that are currently being made.

“We are using all the carriages we can on diagrams (train patterns) and we have new trains coming that will increase capacity by 25 per cent.

“We ordered these new trains as soon as we could after getting the franchise. We could not place the order for them until we knew we had been given the franchise.

“It’s quite a big job to build a train, to ensure it’s to the right spec and that it’s everything we want for our passengers in terms of layout for the routes we are running.

“There are other train operators ordering new trains too so train manufacturers are very busy fulfilling all these orders.

“The process of ordering a train is a lengthy one but we want to make sure we get the right ones.”