South Essex rail passengers will get an improved service after a poor performance last year, train bosses have pledged.

Official figures out today showed rail punctuality had worsened on 39 of the 77 routes run by the 25 passenger train companies in 1999, compared with 1998.

Punctuality improved on 37 routes while one route stayed the same, the shadow strategic rail authority reported.

Companies did better on reliability, which is based on the number of trains run, compared with the published timetable.

Reliability last year improved on 41 routes, stayed the same on nine and worsened on 27.

One of the poorer performances came from Southend-Fenchurch Street line operator LTS, which was one of only two operators to slip back a grade.

The firm's reliability rating dropped slightly from 98.6 per cent to 98.4 per cent, while punctuality plummeted from 93.9 per cent to 89.8.

But LTS spokesman Alan Wheeler said the drop in performance was largely outside the company's control.

He said: "In the last quarter of the year we have had a number of problems with infrastructure, like wires going down, which regrettably we have no control over."

Problems had also been caused by delays in the delivery of a fleet of state-of-the art trains from Railtrack, Mr Wheeler added. The 48 sliding-door trains, the first phase of a planned 74-strong fleet, were due to go into service in November last year.

Delivery delays also meant that a relaunch planned for this month - including a name change to c2c - had been put back.

He said: "The new trains mean that, instead of the decrepit and slam-door trains we inherited from BR, we'll have a brand new fleet of trains, which should obviously improve our performance enormously, as they're not so prone to breakdown and will shave journey times."

In separate figures just for the period October 17, 1999, to January 8, 2000, Great Eastern, operator of the Southend-Liverpool Street line, was one of three to move up a grade.

The firm's overall reliability rose from 99.7 per cent to 99.5 per cent, and punctuality increased 0.4 per cent to 90.6.

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