Great Eastern and Anglia Railways are patting themselves on the back after bucking the national trend to show improvements in service during the last year.

Figures published by the shadow strategic rail authority have revealed performances worsening on more than half the 77 routes run by the passenger train companies last year compared with the previous year.

But Great Eastern achieved a 99.7 percentage for reliability and just over 90 per cent for punctuality as did Anglia.

Train companies are in grades A to E - only one is currently in grade A and none are in grade E - and both Great Eastern and Anglia are in grade B.

Peter Northfield, Great Eastern's public affairs manager, said: "We have always had a high level of reliability and are one of the top operators in the country.

"The punctuality of our service has improved over the years and, along with safety, we take punctuality and reliability very seriously."

He added: "The vast majority of delays caused on our trains are outside our control - perhaps it is signal or points failure and that is down to Railtrack."

Anglia's corporate affairs manager Jonathan Denby said: "We are very pleased with the result. We are among the top five operators in the country."

He said the main line level had retained a 91 per cent level of reliability which was the target.

"We were pleased to meet that, given that the number of services on the line has increased so much. This does make it difficult to maintain levels and it is a genuinely greater challenge when so many trains are running."

He added: "It is good news for passengers and many will end up travelling on both our service and Great Eastern, particularly those from Colchester, Manningtree and Ipswich.

"If people buy a ticket from us, we must provide them with a good quality service and, though delays may sometime be outside our control, we have a responsibility to work with Railtrack and whoever to improve the infrastructure."

Converted for the new archive on 19 November 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.