A group of community railway campaigners have bagged a prestigious national award for the second year running.

Stourbridge Line User Group (SLUG) has received two silver awards from Railfuture, an organisation that includes all UK Rail User Groups.

The accolades were given to SLUG for its coverage of campaigning activities in its newsletters and on its website.

Read more: Stourbridge and Halesowen town halls at risk of closing

Paul McLennan MSP, the vice-president of Railfuture, handed over the awards to SLUG chairman, Roger Davis, at the awards ceremony in Edinburgh in July.

A panel of four leading figures in the rail industry said: "There is a good mix of local, regional and national coverage of issues and some 'fun' items which hopefully engaged a wider audience."

They added: "The current news on the website is of good quality with several recent postings and plenty of good quality pictures".

Mr Davis said: "As a small user group, we were amazed to win the Gold Award for best newsletter in 2023.

"Therefore, for senior national Railway Managers to award us two Silver Awards in 2024 in the best newsletter and best website categories is well beyond what we expected."

He added: "The newsletter and website, along with our Facebook page, allow us to communicate news and campaign progress to our members and the general public.

"We listen to concerns and we act on them.

"We have a respectful relationship with the train operators and the West Midlands Rail Executive and this enabled us to get train services at Hagley and Blakedown improved in June.

"We currently have other proposed improvements on the table and we are in contact with Stourbridge MP, Cat Eccles, to discuss how we can co-operate to get further improvements to rail services in the Stourbridge area."