Batch removing part of filenames using Automator

All you are doing is returning a list of the last part of the names (if there is more than one delimiter character, the second part) to the next action.

Text item delimiters aren't really needed if you are just using the first occurrence of a character, so you can do something like:

on run {input, parameters}
    set output to {}
    repeat with anItem in input
        set {theFolder, oldName, extension} to getNamePieces from anItem
        try
            set here to offset of "_" in oldName
            set newName to text 1 thru (here - 1) of oldName
            tell application "Finder" to set name of anItem to (newName & extension)
            set end of output to (theFolder & newName & extension) as alias
        on error errmess -- don't rename if error (delimiter not found, duplicate file, etc)
            log errmess
            set end of output to anItem as alias
        end try
    end repeat
    return output -- for next action
end run

to getNamePieces from someItem
    tell application "System Events" to tell disk item (someItem as text)
        set |container| to path of container
        set {|name|, extension} to {name, name extension}
    end tell
    if extension is not "" then
        set |name| to text 1 thru -((count extension) + 2) of |name| -- just the name part
        set extension to "." & extension
    end if
    return {container, |name|, extension}
end getNamePieces