PASSENGER groups and MPs last night joined forces to launch a withering attack on the standard of rail services in the North-East.

In a report MPs on the Commons Transport Select Committee said it was "intolerable" that the region was so badly served.

The Strategic Rail Authority was also criticised, with the MPs claiming in the report that it had "forfeited the confidence" of its partner groups.

They were backed by rail campaigners, who pinpointed a number of pressing concerns including the future of some rail franchises.

The MPs said that the structure of the rail network in the North was too complex, major projects appeared to be abandoned and demoted with little justification and passengers were either not consulted or given too little notice of changes to the timetable.

The MPs said: "Problems such as the driver shortage at Arriva Trains Northern were allowed to drift until action could not be avoided, and there was no time to communicate with customers.

"Rightly or wrongly, the Strategic Rail Authority also appears to have blocked plans for network infrastructure expansion, funded by train operating companies.

"It is clear there is market demand for a high quality, reasonably priced rail service.

"It is intolerable that the North of England should be so badly served."

Brian Milnes, chairman of the Teeside branch of campaign group Transport 2000, backed the report and described some services as "totally inadequate".

He said: "We want a proper rail network to serve the whole of the North-East - we are not asking for a miracle here.

"Apart from Darlington, Durham and Newcastle, the North-East has to put up with a terrible service and very poor facilities at some stations."

Mr Milnes added that projects such as the one to re-open the Leamside line from Ferryhill to Pelaw were announced by the SRA and were happening "sometime never".

Ian Walker, a North-East spokesman for national rail users group Rail Future, said his main concern was for a resolution to who was going to run the Trans-Pennine and new Northern rail franchises.

The Trans-Pennine franchise is due to start in late 2003 and the Northern franchise by summer 2004, but no decision has yet been made on a successful franchise bidder for either.