The timekeeping of Thames Trains has been exposed as the second worst in Britain, according to a new report today.

Thames was the second least punctual of the 25 train operators, with Chiltern Railways faring only slightly better, in the report by OPRAF, the Office of Passenger Rail Franchising.

Terry Worrall, director and general manager of Thames Trains, which runs services out of Paddington to Oxfordshire, admitted its punctuality figure of 83.7 per cent for last year - which earned them a 'D grade' in the report - was not good enough.

But he said the rate had risen to 85.4 per cent in the last four weeks.

He added: "It's not right yet but it seems the changes we have put in place are starting to make a positive impact. We have streamlined the company so that we can direct resources - by that I mean people and finance - into service delivery areas.

"We hope the improvements we have seen so far will accelerate in the coming months. Some of the difficulties we face are beyond our control, such as infrastructure improvements, which can cause disruption." The report also measured the reliability of services. Thames came joint 20th.

Chiltern Railways which operates via Bicester North, Haddenham and Thame Parkway, Kings Sutton and Banbury, managed to get its trains on time just 86.4 per cent of the time, according to the report.

That gave them a "C grade" for punctuality and placed them 19th in the table, although they gained mid-table respectability for reliability.

Chiltern has promised to review its timetable, reorganise train maintenance schedules and look at its quality control procedures.

The firm said that since privatisation it had increased peak services by one third - which lengthened the number of miles it travelled by nearly one million.

It added: "It is now clear that neither our maintenance procedures nor the infrastructure capacity on our route, in particular the remaining section of single line, has been adequate to cope with this."

OPRAF franchising director John O'Brien said reliability had improved but punctuality was still disappointing among most networks.

Story date: Thursday 11 February

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.