Passengers face further rail delays

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NR could now be heavily fined by rail regulators for its overrun of the project on the West Coast Main Line in the West Midlands.

The work in the Rugby area should have been finished in time for the start of services on Monday this week. But blaming "a shortage of specialist engineering and contractor staff", NR was unable to reopen the West Midlands section of the line on Wednesday for the return to work after the festive period.

And by early on Wednesday afternoon NR, which apologised profusely for the disruption, had to announce that the work would be extended into Thursday, although it would not comment on a report that it could be next Monday before services return to normal.

As passengers spoke of "nightmare journeys" which were compounded by a fire which caused an evacuation at Birmingham International station, opposition MPs joined in the condemnation of NR, while the Office of Rail Regulation (ORR) said it was launching "an urgent investigation" into the West Coast situation.

The ORR said it was also looking into the overrunning of NR engineering works which meant that Liverpool Street main line station in London was closed on Wednesday - affecting services from the capital to East Anglia.

The ORR has already fined NR £2.4 million for the late delivery of signalling work at Portsmouth in 2006 and the rail infrastructure company could face another hefty fine over the West Coast and Liverpool Street incidents.

The engineering work meant that a large section of the West Coast line was shut, with passengers having to use buses to travel between Birmingham and Northampton.

NR operations and customer services director Robin Gisbey said the overruns were "completely unacceptable" and added that an investigation into what had gone wrong had started. Mr Gisbey said he was "deeply sorry" about the further disruption to passengers.

The travel misery was compounded by the fact that this was the day that new higher-than-inflation train fares came into force. Shadow transport secretary Therese Villiers said passengers had been "on the end of a real double whammy" and added that Labour had "let rail passengers down badly".