Big increases in the number of rail passengers travelling between Birmingham and London show the British will not be cowed by terrorists, Virgin Trains has claimed.

Last month, 130,000 journeys were made on the route, up from 104,000 at the same time last year.

Coventry has seen the biggest increase in passengers with a 35 per cent rise yearon-year as passengers have taken to the improved halfhourly service, introduced after completion of the West Coast Main Line upgrade last September.

Passenger numbers between Birmingham and London are up 25 per cent and between Wolverhampton to London they are up eight per cent.

Virgin Trains' West Coast managing director Charles Belcher said: " We are delighted with these results, which is a tribute to the determination of our people and other industry colleagues.

"Our customers rightly demand consistently excellent performance and we shall continue to strive for further improvement."

A spokesman later admitted the company had been surprised with the scale of passenger increases, especially as the new 125mph Pendolino train fleet had experienced numerous teething problems.

But, over the last six months 84.4 per cent of Virgin's trains between London and the West Midlands arrived on time.

During the four weeks up to July 23 - the most recent figures - performance rose to 86.8 per cent.

"Those problems we faced are facts and we are open about the early problems we had, but a lot of hard work by a lot of people has paid off and we are getting it right now.

"The figures are all the more remarkable considering that services were suspended on July 7 because of the bombs in London.

"But the fact the passenger numbers have recovered so quickly shows, as a nation, we will not be stopped from going about out business by terrorism."

Performance of the Pendolino fleet continues to improve.

Meanwhile, Virgin's Cross-Country network is set to break the 20 million passenger journeys per year mark for the first time since it launched in 2002, doubling the ten million per year Virgin started with in 1997.

Virgin believe the fact it has based the network in a successfully regenerating Birmingham has helped the passenger figures grow.