FLOOD-HIT railway passengers on the East Coast Mainline are facing misery until at least Sunday as divers check the safety of submerged bridge supports.

Although the line is to re-open today at Hatfield - scene of the crash which killed four people last month - it will be closed for at least another two days between Newcastle and Doncaster because of flooding at Croxdale, County Durham, and in South Yorkshire.

If trains get moving on Sunday, they will be the first since Tuesday to make an uninterrupted journey from the North-East to London.

A GNER spokesman said: "At both locations the railway line crosses a river, so we're going to have to wait for the water to subside before divers and engineers can determine if there's been any damage beneath the waterline."

And he said no alternative transport was being made available because of disruption to the road network

GNER, which usually carries about 35,000 passengers a day, is now facing losses running into millions because of the month-long rail chaos.

Although the company, which according to the most recent figures made a profit approaching £40,000 a day, could not specify the amount, a spokesman admitted the company was facing "significant losses".

Passenger numbers have dwindled because of disruption caused by speed restrictions and now flooding.

A spokesman for the company added: "We might still be refunding tickets in a few weeks time, so we won't know what sort of levels of refunds have been paid out until the disruption is over."

Figures released last night show that train punctuality was worsening even before the post-Hatfield crash speed restrictions and recent floods.

GNER had 11 per cent fewer trains on time in July to October compared to the same period in 1999, the poorest performance of all 25 passenger train companies in the country.

After the chaos caused by rail repairs and the floods, bosses of all the country's train companies have been given a week to produce a new timetable and tell passengers what services they will be running over Christmas.

Railtrack boss Gerald Corbett and other industry executives met Prime Minister Tony Blair and Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott in Downing Street yesterday.

Afterwards, Mr Corbett pledged to continue to "blitz" the rail network in a bid to get it back to normal by Christmas.

But he said only one-sixth of the 300 miles of track had been replaced since the Hatfield crash, with 250 miles still needing to be changed.