First Great Western (FGW) has apologised to rail users "for not meeting their expectations".
It follows a protest by hundreds of passengers on Monday. They were complaining about late and crowded trains. Some have had a reduced service since a new timetable was introduced in December.

In a statement, managing director Alison Forster said the Wiltshire-based company had underestimated the demand for its train services.

Ms Forster agreed "too much capacity was removed from the timetable".

She said the problems were compounded by difficulties with fleet availability.

"We have listened to our customers and increased capacity on the worst affected journeys and are now implementing measures which will further increase capacity," she said.

"In the last few days we have started to deliver the correct number of trains for our services. With the additional trains and with better reliability from our existing fleet we are already seeing an improvement.  Our plans will enable this improvement to continue in the coming weeks."

Ms Forster said the company was investing £8m in a new maintenance facility in Bristol and £1m in refurbishing train interiors.

'Abysmal state'

On Monday, train campaigners said about 2,000 rail passengers refused to pay fares in a day of protest over services. Tony Blair welcomed FGW's improvements in the Commons on Wednesday.

"I know, obviously as a result of what happened earlier in the week, there's been a great deal of debate about First Western's services in Bristol. I am glad that the company have taken some measures to try and address those concerns," he said.

Passengers have set-up an E-petition calling for a reliable service. The prime minister was responding to Bristol North West MP Doug Naysmith who said: "The situation for my constituents who use FirstGroup's disastrous commuter trains is dire.

"The abysmal state of public transport in the greater Bristol area would be greatly improved by setting up an integrated transport system, such as is found in areas with a passenger transport executive."

Mr Blair said the Road Transport Bill, due in draft later this year, would improve transport governance in cities, including those with passenger transport authorities.

Nearly 900 people have signed a petition on the prime minister's website calling for a reliable train service.

Unprecedented levels of growth on Britain’s railways seen over the last 10 years has continued over the past 12 months. – there has been a growth in passenger kilometres travelled on Britain’s railways of over 40% in the past ten years to 41.6 billion, an increase of 3.2% over the 40.3 billion of 2003. At 41.6 billion this represents the best performance since 1946 when there were far fewer cars on the roads and domestic air travel was virtually non-existent. Growth was greatest in London and the south east commuter area (50.7%) with increases in regional and long distance services of 35.0% and 28.8% respectively.

There are now an average of 2.82 million passenger journeys travelled on Britain’s rail network every day, the highest since 1959. Only Germany, with a network significantly larger than Britain’s, carries more people. Britain’s railways carried about 90 million more people than did the SNCF in France, with virtually the same population. Over 19,400 scheduled passenger services are being operated each weekday during the 2004/5 timetable, an increase of 11.4% since 1995. (Source ATOC Ten-year European Rail Growth Trends).

With such a growth to cater for Network Rail is now looking to the Government for an extra £7.9 billion in order to cope with the increase.

Rail has long been, and remains, the least environmentally damaging form of powered transport. But advances in the automotive sector have significantly reduced harmful emissions from road vehicles in the past decade and some commentators are beginning to speculate that ‘rail is now more environmentally polluting than the car’.

However these comments are based on very selective and simplistic use of data. This booklet lays out the key facts on current performance and future developments. Statistics on rail’s current atmospheric emissions performance and the relative impact of rail in comparison with other modes show rail is still ahead.Nonetheless the UK rail industry is committed to further improving its environmental performance to
ensure that rail remains at the forefront of the effort to minimise the impact of increasing transport use and provide the most sustainable transport solution.

Paul Kirk
Chairman,The Railway Forum
Keith Ludeman
Chairman,The Association of Train Operating Companies

The Railway Forum
12 Grosvenor Place, London,SW1X 7HH
Tel: 020 7259 6543 Fax: 020 7259 6544
www.railwayforum.com
The Association of Train Operating Companies
40 Bernard Street, London,WC1N 1BY
Tel: 020 7841 8020 Fax: 020 7841 8263
www.atoc.org

Rail firm GNER is going to court to try to overturn a decision by the Office of Rail Regulation (ORR) allowing a rival firm to operate on its routes. GNER, which runs intercity trains on the East Coast Main Line, argues that ORR's decision to allow Grand Central to operate on the route is unlawful. GNER says it pays more to access the track than Grand Central, which is set to run a London to Sunderland service.

A spokesman for the ORR said it would "vigorously contest the proceedings".

GNER, which has a franchise agreement to run intercity trains on the East Coast Main Line, is focusing on the rates it pays in track access charges compared with Grand Central, which is an open access operator.

As a franchise rail operator, GNER has to make three payments to gain access to the tracks: a fixed charge, a variable charge, and a franchise premium of £1.3bn over 10 years. In March, Grand Central won the right to run three direct trains a day between Sunderland and London.

GNER believes the ORR decision is "unlawful because Grand Central would not pay either the fixed track access charges or premium payments that GNER pays under its franchise contract".

In addition GNER is challenging Grand Central's plan to stop at York, "which is already served by 61 trains a day to and from London, when its stated goal is to create a new rail market between Sunderland and London".

Another grievance of GNER is that it would lose money to Grand Central since it would have to share revenue with the firm. GNER stressed that the case is against the ORR not against Grand Central.