Transport minister John Reid spoke as the Office of Passenger Rail Franchising (Opraf) revealed that passengers were suffering declining punctuality on the railways.

Time-keeping has got worse on 42 routes and improved on just 19, with three remaining static, according to Opraf's quarterly performance bulletin.

And reliability has declined on 32 routes and improved on 26, with six staying the same, Opraf said.

'This cannot continue'

Dr Reid said: "Yet again we see that the overall performance of train operators has fallen.

"This cannot continue. Although some operators have improved their performance, the overall level is being dragged down by those who continue to lag behind."

Commuters are suffering drops in punctuality

Dr Reid said that he and Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott would be meeting representatives of the train operators and Railtrack on 26 November to discuss future railway policy.

The meeting represents another step towards the formation of a Strategic Rail Authority, set out in this year's Transport White Paper. It will aim to identify problems and solutions to performance in rail services.

Commenting on the Opraf bulletin, franchising director John O'Brien said: "Overall performance over the last three months has shown no improvement.

"A comparison of the current year with the previous year, though, continues to show a poorer picture because of declining punctuality earlier in the year. Reliability year on year is broadly neutral."

Opraf's quarterly bulletin measures reliability and punctuality on the 25 passenger rail franchises during the second quarter of this financial year.

The bulletin compares performance against the Passenger's Charter over the year to 19 September, 1998 with the year to 13 September, 1997.

Punctuality down

Year-on-year four services showed a drop in punctuality of more than 5%:

• Cardiff Railways (6%)

• Chiltern Trains (7%)

• North Western Trains' Manchester North route (7%)

• Thames Trains (7%).

Routes showing a year-on-year decline in reliability of more than 1% were:

• North Western Trains' Merseyside City Lines

• Manchester South and Manchester North routes

• Wales & West's West and Central Wales route.

They were Anglia's Ipswich to Felixstowe route, and ScotRail's East and Central routes.

Call for legislation

A spokesman for pressure group Save Our Railways said: "These dire figures send an unambiguous message to the government that they must now bring forward legislation to sort the railways out.

"These figures show that the Labour Party was right to say privatisation wouldn't work, but now we need to see action from Labour to sort out the mess. That means new rail legislation in the Queen's Speech."

The Central Rail Users Consultative Committee (CRUCC) - the statutory body representing passenger interests - was dismayed at the figures.

CRUCC acting director Jon Carter said: "For those of us who want to see a vibrant and revitalised railway today's figures are immensely disappointing."

Mr Carter said performance on much of the rail network has been in decline for the past two years.

However the committee welcomed the tougher stance the franchising director has taken recently with operators who continued to fail to meet performance targets.