RAIL chiefs have apologised after admitting performance on the East Coast Main Line has fallen below standards expected by passengers.
The apology comes after Gateshead MP Ian Mearns told The Journal of his concerns about services on the key route linking the North East with London and Scotland.
The Labour MP is set to table a Commons motion deploring continuing “poor levels of service” caused by regular delays and cancellations, as well as rolling stock that should be replaced.
The motion will single out “the regularity of broken down catering equipment such as boilers, cookers or chillers or the absence of catering and functioning toilets which are all greater hardships on journeys of up to eight hours”.
Mr Mearns said: “It’s not all the fault of the rail company. Network Rail, which provides the infrastructure of tracks, points and signals, is also to blame.
“It is clearly creaking at the seams and the system is in danger of hitting the buffers, so to speak. The point of this Parliamentary action is to signal to all those running the railway that serves us that they really need to get a grip.”
Mr Mearns also said there was a “very strong case” for bringing the entire rail network back into public ownership, and not just East Coast trains and Network Rail.
A Network Rail spokesman said: “We recognise that performance on the East Coast has, at times, fallen below the standards our customers rightly expect. A large amount of the impact has been caused by external factors – such as the extreme weather at the end of 2010 and cable theft, which continues to be a challenge.
“We apologise that performance has not reached the high levels we strive for and assure passengers that we are working hard with East Coast to tackle the issues to turn performance around.”
An East Coast spokesman said: “We have cut delays due to factors within our control as a train operator to the lowest level on this route since industry records began 11 years ago.”
The period referred to covers March 3-31, during which East Coast was responsible for 2,820 delay minutes – with the target being 4,467 minutes.
