Rain blamed for late-running trains

Published on 03/08/2012 00:25

Floods and torrential rain have been blamed by two of the UK’s main rail operators for disappointing punctuality figures.

East Coast ran 84.9 per cent of its services on time, and Virgin Trains 86.5 per cent, for the period 24 June-21 July.

Nationally, 92.7 per cent of trains hit their punctuality target, up slightly from last year’s figure of 92.2 per cent for the same period.

Commuter trains must arrive within five minutes and long-distance services within ten minutes to count as being on time. Trains cancelled due to external factors, such as the weather, vandalism or suicides, still count against operators’ scores.

An East Coast spokesman said: “The unprecedented wet weather, which caused severe flooding and landslips at the end of the wettest June on record, was responsible for two out of the three incidents which caused the most delay to East Coast services.”

Steven Knight, of Virgin Trains, said: “We are disappointed, but we did have the severe weather we experienced with torrential rain and landslips.”