TWO leading train companies have vowed to get their services back on track after admitting they went off the rails last year.

Virgin Rail and First North Western, the main companies serving Bolton, said they will make heavy investments into improving rail services for passengers.

The comments came in the light of a damning report by the Rail Users' Consultative Committee for the North West which accused the firms of poor performance and high prices.

They are also hot on the heels of a call by the Greater Manchester Passenger Transport Authority for train companies to show a "marked improvement".

Mark Patterson, a Virgin spokesman, said: "I agree that the company has had severe problems. But you have to understand that we inherited a railway with 30 years of under-investment. We operate trains that are up to 30 years old and some have travelled more than 5.5 million miles.

"We know that we have not been providing the service that people would expect but we are trying to address the situation.

"We have ordered a large number of new trains which passengers in the Bolton area will soon see the benefits of."

First North Western came in for criticism for "severe problems" in the summer of 1998. The report claimed the company is in financial difficulty and has seen its quality of service suffer as a result.

Increase

In a statement to the BEN, First North Western said: "The increase in the number of complaints to the RUCC about First North Western reflects the various operating problems experienced last year.

"As a result of a series of initiatives put in place to improve train service performance, First North Western services are now amongst the most punctual and reliable in the UK."

One of the RUCC's main concerns was Virgin's "astonishing" price rise in the face of "poor" performance.

Mr Patterson explained: "Virgin has sought to contain fare increases to three of the 24 fares it operates: First Class, Virgin Business and Standard Class.

"The other 21 fares have had small increases with some fares now being relatively less than at any time since the war."

He admitted the company had more than 290,000 complaints last year but said it resented only a small percentage of the 29 million journeys made.

He also said the company strives to make it easy for passengers to air their misgivings with contact addresses freely available.

First North Western said it is also keen to lower the number of complaints. A spokesman said: "Customer complaints have now fallen considerably and with £100 million of investment on the way, including £70 million in new, state-of-the-art trains, First North Western looks forward to offering its customers an even better service."

The RUCC's report coincided with John Prescott's renewed call for more people to use public transport.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.