A SURVEY of rail passengers on the East Coast Main Line has shown almost half have had cause to make a complaint about some stage of a rail journey.

The Rail Passenger Committee's third annual survey, carried out at Doncaster station in May, is published tomorrow and, unsurprisingly following the Hatfield disaster, the main cause for concern is punctuality.

Some 41 per cent of the 238 respondents stated punctuality as "poor", while 44 said they had made a complaint about a journey, and 34 per cent believed railway toilet facilities were poor.

Other causes for concern were reliability, fares, food on trains (all 31 per cent), parking (29 per cent), maintaining connections (26 per cent) and luggage space (25 per cent).

However, 73 per cent said staff courtesy was "excellent or good", and such praise was also given for information on services and fares, getting a seat (54 per cent), information at time of travel (53 per cent) and frequency of trains (46 per cent).