Train passengers have experienced worse services since privatisation, a report by the Office of Passenger Rail Franchising has shown.

BBC Transport Correspondent Alan Whitehouse reports on the notorious West Coast line (3'04'')

Reliability and punctuality have both declined, says the report being published on Thursday.

Some rail operators, particularly Virgin West Coast, offer a poorer service than British Rail prior to the division and sale of the British rail network.

Passengers kept waiting

Overall, the study found performance improved while the industry was being privatised.

A few operators have continued to improve reliability.

But after April 1997, when the last franchise was sold, it has deteriorated markedly across the industry.

Passengers faced more cancellations when they arrived at stations and longer delays after boarding trains.

Virgin blames infrastructure

Virgin Trains Chief Executive Brian Barret: "It's getting better" (3'04'')

Virgin's West Coast service has the worst record for the entire rail network.

In the Scottish part of the route, one in two trains ran late.

Brian Barrat: Virgin is investing £3bn with Railtrack

Virgin has improved its service overall - but the company has recently paid around £250,000 in compensation for bad service to passengers.

The Chief Executive of Virgin Rail, Brian Barrat, blamed worn out track and signalling for delays and said these problems were being tackled.

He said: "I don't think that we can change things overnight and I don't think people expect us to change things overnight.

"What we have done is committed ourselves, as we promised, to the £3bn worth of investment that both Railtrack and ourselves are going to make in this route to make sure that in the future reliability improves dramatically."

Changes yet to save Government money

The Chairman of British Rail, John Welsby, condemned the slow progress of the private operators in a lecture to the Chartered Institute of Transport on Wednesday.

"For the privatised railway, the honeymoon is very close to being over," he said.

"As regards operational performance, the industry is in danger of being perceived as having collected in two years as much 'reputational baggage' as BR did in 50 [years].

"In general, the privatised railway is hardly better than it was in the last years of public ownership. That is a great disappointment."

He said privatisation had not resulted in a drop in Government cash being injected into the industry.

This was the second benefit, after improved performance, promised by advocates of a rail sell-off.

"The situation is particularly ominous because very significant additional funds have now been injected into the industry," said Mr Welsby.

Charles Belcher: "delighted"

One of the few operators to have bettered previous service in the past nine months is Silverlink, which runs trains in north London.

The company is part of the National Express group and was privatised just under a year ago.

Its Managing Director, Charles Belcher, said fewer delays and an all-round reliable service would ensure the company's survival.

"I'm delighted by the improvement in the performance over the last year," he said.

"Our improvement really results from an understanding from everyone in the company that the only way we are going to prosper within the new world is to provide a train service for our customers that gets better year upon year."
 

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