THE boss of a much-maligned railway service from Yate to Bristol finally proved his firm was on the right track today.

Regional manager of First Great Western Andrew Griffiths climbed aboard for a train journey with Northavon MP Steve Webb during this morning's rush hour.

He was asked a series of questions by passengers, most of whom face standing room only by the time the hourly train reaches Yate from Gloucester.

David Youell, who travels from Yate to Parkway every day, said he was pleased to finally meet a representative of the firm face-to-face.

Mr Youell has spearheaded protests at Yate Station after the frequency of rush hour trains was reduced and the number of carriages per service was cut to just two during the evening.

He said: "I have sent so many emails and had no response or just received a meaningless reply, so at least First Great Western are starting to listen.

"I have been turned away from the train I needed to catch at least three times this year already because of overcrowding, and have then had to get a taxi to work, and I have not sat down on a train this year.

"We are becoming resigned to those facts so it is good to remind First Great Western of how bad things are and hopefully they will get things on track for us."

Mr Webb said the train journey had helped remind the company of the desperate need for improvements to services between Yate and Bristol.

"The statistics show they are running more trains more of the time but commuters are still very unhappy," he said.

"Everything so far has been a bit faceless so this worked very well and most people were quite civil."

The 8.15am train to Bristol pulled in on time for the duo, although they had to queue to board and had nowhere to sit.

"I didn't want to arrange anything big because the whole point was for Mr Griffiths to experience a normal Monday morning commute."

First Great Western said the firm was now considering two options to improve services between Yate and the city.

Bosses are looking at introducing a £5million turnaround system at Yate, where the hourly train would simply turn straight back round and head for Bristol rather than go on to Gloucester.

They will also investigate acquiring more carriages from other firms to add to the current trains.