PASSENGERS on the busy East Coast Main Line may have to wait more than five years for new trains, it was revealed yesterday.

The boss of train operator GNER told a committee of MPs that only an immediate three-year extension of its current franchise would unlock an order for up to a dozen new trains for delivery by 2007/8.

The new rolling stock would boost services on the crowed line and open up faster services to Teesside.

But York-based GNER's chief executive, Christopher Garnett, backed down from the company's previous demands for a long-term franchise to operate rail services on the East Coast Main Line, which links the North-East and North Yorkshire with London and Scotland.

Despite the bid for the extended franchise last year, the then Transport Secretary Stephen Byers decided to allow only a two- year extension of GNER's existing franchise to 2005.

Yesterday, Mr Garnett told the Commons transport sub-committee that the company ''for pragmatic reasons'' now backed a further three-year extension of the franchise to 2008.

That would allow new rolling stock to be ordered, and would also give time for uncertainty over major upgrading of the line to be cleared up.

''We have not softened our position,'' said Mr Garnett, ''the world has changed. The money we thought was around is not around now.''

He also revealed the deadlock surrounding the upgrade for the East Coast Main Line. That issue is now in the hands of the Strategic Rail Authority.

"The upgrade plans are on the agenda of every meeting we have with the SRA," said Mr Garnett. "We are waiting", he added.

"What I hope is that we get the three-year roll forward of the franchise. On that basis, we can order new trains and get somewhere."

He said the company would then be in a better position to bid for a long-term franchise once that was achieved, and uncertainty was resolved over the line upgrade.

In written evidence to the committee, GNER said a three-year extension could allow new trains to serve new markets "ranging from rural Lincoln to the industrial hinterland of Middlesbrough and Teesside, as well as adding frequency to existing markets."

The hearing was the first public evidence session in a new inquiry by the Transport Sub-Committee into rail services in the north of England