Network Rail ordered to improve as public endures yet more late trains

INCREASING numbers of train delays in Scotland and on the east coast main line have prompted a severe reprimand for the firm responsible for tracks from its regulator.

The performance of Network Rail in minimising delays has fallen “well short of what passengers expect”, the Office of Rail Regulation (ORR) said yesterday.

It said the company was “adrift” of its targets, which must be remedied quickly.

The ORR, which controls Network Rail’s spending, can fine it up to hundreds of millions of pounds, and has threatened “formal action” if the company fails to meet its annual targets.

The regulator said the major problems in Scotland were track defects and bad weather.

The ORR said the problems had caused ScotRail’s punctuality in the four weeks to 23 July to sink to 89.1 per cent of trains arriving within five minutes of schedule.

It said that was “some way behind the year-end target of 91.7 per cent, and the trend is sharply downwards”.

The ORR acknowledged Network Rail had faced problems such as an “unseasonal” gale on 23 May, which had almost totally closed down the Scottish network, but said it was “more concerned” with “underlying trends”.

These included nearly one quarter more track problems than last year, which was also worse than elsewhere in Britain.

An ORR spokesman said: “We have met with Network Rail and ScotRail to discuss and understand the issues, and the companies are working together in a determined effort to recover performance.”

On the Scotland-London east coast main line, the ORR said performance remained “poor” and was unimpressed by Network Rail’s response.

It said problems included thefts of signalling cable (because of the high price of copper), suicides, lightning and flooding, and train faults.

An ORR spokesman said: “We still need to see convincing plans that demonstrate how Network Rail is going to address this.”

ORR chief executive Richard Price said: “The causes of delay are often complex, particularly where they are driven by factors outside the railway like cable theft, but the impact of delay on passengers’ lives can be huge.”

David Sidebottom, director of watchdog Passenger Focus, said: “Punctual trains are among passengers’ top priorities, so we’re concerned that Network Rail is falling behind key end-of-year punctuality targets.”

Network Rail said a 23 May storm, coupled with a lightning strike and separate death on the line near Lockerbie had caused delays totalling 143 hours alone – or nearly six days.

A spokesman said: “The Scottish rail network is a traditionally high performing one, and we are working hard to return punctuality to the levels our customers and their passengers have come to expect.

“We have experienced a challenging start to the year with extreme weather conditions and infrastructure incidents impacting on our performance.”