THE rail industry is under fire again as figures reveal the region's long-suffering passengers had to contend with worsening services at the end of last year.

The figures show that an average of 71.2 per cent of trains ran on time in the October to December period, compared with 79 per cent for the previous three months.

Last night, Transport Secretary Stephen Byers said: "It is clear that the performance last autumn was simply not good enough. These figures paint a grim picture of delays and poor performance.

"It is vital that the rail industry, working with the Government, acts with determination to drive up punctuality and improve reliability."

A spokesman for GNER, which saw the number of its trains arriving on time fall from 73.5 per cent to 69 per cent, said: "In that particular period there was some overhead line damage, which caused severe disruption to trains from London."

He said that two line-side fatalities and problems with ageing rolling stock had also contributed to delays.

He added: "On the positive side, GNER is now undergoing a programme of re-engineering of its trains. Some of the components are going to be much more up-to-date and reliable than what we've had to live with over the last ten or 20 years."

Ray Price, managing director of Arriva Trains Northern, said the company had inherited problems of driver shortages, which came to a head at the end of last year when its reliability rating dropped from 73.4 to 71.6 per cent.

He said: "Our latest Passenger Charter figures, which monitored train services operating between February 3 and March 2, show that 99.2 per cent of our services operated and 87.8 per cent of them were on time.

"We have carried out one of the largest driver recruitment and training campaigns ever seen in the industry."

Virgin CrossCountry, whose rating dropped from 63.2 to 58.4 per cent, said early indications were that the figures for the first part of this year would be much improved.

A spokesman said: "These figures are three months out of date.

"What you have got to remember is there was a hell of a lot of bad weather during that period."

Ernie Preston, chairman of the North-East Rail Passengers Committee, said: "It's disappointing that once again the industry has failed to deliver high-quality rail services to the passenger.

"That said, it is historical and we should be looking towards the future, and I would echo sentiments about getting investment in place to bring about improvements.

"In the North, particularly, we should look at the process of refranchising to get the train operators set up on a proper financial basis, rather than the cheap and cheerful approach which was done in the first instance."