A freedom of information request from this paper has revealed the number of delayed trains that left from Welwyn Garden City, Hatfield and Potters Bar in 2019.
We asked National Rail for data about all the train services that left these stations and how many of those were delayed throughout 2019.
For morning commuters, from 6am to 9am, Welwyn Garden City travellers saw 1,850 delayed trains out of a total 8,625 – 21 per cent or one in every five trains.
In Hatfield there were 4,079 delayed trains between 6am and 9am out of 12,006 trains – 34 per cent or one in every three trains were delayed.
For the same times Potters Bar saw 27 per cent of 12,014 trains delayed – a total of 3268 trains.
The evening commuting hours, 5pm to 8pm, Welwyn Garden City saw 2,619 delayed trains out of 7,958 – 33 per cent, 12 per cent higher than the morning commuting hours.
Hatfield saw 42 per cent of the trains in this time frame delayed, 4,805 out of 11,343.
Potters Bar had 38 per cent of 12,804 trains delayed between 5pm and 9pm throughout 2019, 4,808 in total.
The worst hour period for Welwyn Garden City was between 7pm and 8pm, with 37 per cent of trains leaving the station being delayed.
Hatfield’s was also 7pm to 8pm, with just over 47 per cent of the 3,470 trains that left being delayed.
Between 6pm and 7pm was the worst hour for Potters Bar by a small margin, 1,864 out of 4,365 trains were delayed – 43 per cent.
In total for Welwyn Garden City there were 10,066 delayed trains out of 43,141 trains in 2019, 23 per cent or just short of one in every four trains were delayed.
Hatfield had 62,454 total trains which departed from the station in 2019, with 22,640 of them not leaving on time – 36 per cent of them.
Just over 27 per cent of trains that left Potters Bar were delayed, 17,869 out of 64,149.
If a train you had planned to catch was delayed or cancelled and it caused you to arrive 15 minutes or more behind schedule, you are entitled to compensation - except where delays have been caused by planned engineering works.
The Delay Repay scheme can help you receive some financial compensation if you make a claim within 28 days of your journey.
Jenny Saunders, customer services director for Thameslink and Great Northern, said: “While train services on this route are among the most punctual in the country, we are striving to do better still.
“This is one of the UK’s busiest routes, where passenger numbers doubled in just 16 years. We introduced a completely new fleet of trains last year to provide our passengers with more capacity, comfort and reliability, and we continue to work hard with Network Rail to improve the network’s infrastructure and resilience.”
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