The region's mayor has called for one of its rail franchises to come under his office's control after hitting out at what he called the "woeful" service it offered.
West Midlands Trains took over the running of the 'West Midlands' franchise from London Midland in December 2017 but has been plagued by a string of negative headlines related to poor service over recent months.
In a scathing attack on his Twitter account, Mayor Andy Street also gave the company a deadline of January 31 to "restore a reliable service" otherwise he would ask the Department for Transport (DfT) to strip West Midlands Trains of its franchise.
West Midlands Trains is a joint venture company led by Dutch group Abellio, with minority partners East Japan Railway Company and Japanese conglomerate Mitsui & Co.
Among its routes is the Cross City line, the key commuter service running between Redditch and Lichfield via Birmingham New Street.
Mr Street said: "The service currently being provided by West Midlands Trains (WMT) is, quite simply, woeful.
"The problems on our region's trains have been dragging on for months and, despite promises from WMT, show no signs of improving.
"I have held several meetings with both WMT and their owners Abellio regarding these problems.
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"As part of these meetings I have made a number of suggestions to improve the service you receive.
"These included bringing forward next May's timetable changes, ending the skipping of local stations when services are running behind schedule (and) freezing January's fare increase until such a time that performance has significantly improved."
Mr Street said all of these suggestions had been rejected and he had "lost faith" in West Midlands Trains' ability to run the network under the current system.
"I have come to the conclusion that the mayor of the West Midlands should take control of and be the single accountable person for rail in the West Midlands," his statement added.
If the DfT backs his proposals, it will take several months to implement and therefore is unlikely to happen before the mayoral election in May when Mr Street will stand again.
Jan Chaudhry-van der Velde, West Midlands Trains' managing director, said in a statement: "We recognise the May timetable has not worked and apologise to all our passengers who have been affected.
"Last week, we brought in extra carriages and made changes to the timetable to improve capacity and performance.
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"Unfortunately, in that short period, we also experienced many incidents outside our control… (including) several track and signalling failures, trespass and anti-social behaviour disrupting a very busy service.
"December's changes are only part of a bigger plan to improve performance which we presented to the West Midlands Rail executive and the DfT last week.
"We consulted with the mayor and the DfT extensively on how to speed up improvements already planned.
"We explored bringing forward next May's timetable with Network Rail but that was not possible due to the impact on the wider rail industry.
"We have committed to an enhanced compensation package for West Midlands rail users which will recognise the planned national fares increase in January.
"Subject to approval, we will announce details of the package early in the new year."