Record £14m fine for Network Rail

But even as bosses of the Office of Rail Regulation (ORR) were announcing the fine, unions, politicians and passenger groups described the penalty as meaningless.

They said that NR, a no-shareholder, not-for-dividend company, was effectively a public firm so that taxpayers would have to foot the bill.

And while NR's chairman Sir Ian McAllister was being officially knighted at Buckingham Palace, his company was saying that it might have to shut sections of the West Coast Main Line (WCML) on summer weekends in order to complete the line's massive upgrade work by the end of the year.

It was a four-day overrun on WCML at Rugby in the West Midlands over the New Year that was the most damaging of the three overruns which led to the fine. A section of the line between Northampton and Birmingham had to be shut, with coaches being laid on instead. Passengers also had to contend with overruns at Liverpool Street station in London and at Shields Junction near Glasgow.

ORR chief executive Bill Emery described the overruns as "a shambles" and "totally unacceptable for passengers".

He and ORR chairman Chris Bolt said ORR had considered at length the size and appropriateness of a fine and had decided on a figure of £14 million to send "a very clear signal" to NR bosses that improvements to the company's performance were necessary.

Last year, top NR directors received large bonuses, with chief executive Iain Coucher getting nearly £80,000.

The ORR chiefs said that bonuses were a matter for NR but that they hoped and expected the NR remuneration committee would take into account the fine when recommending future bonuses.

The fine was announced in a report published by ORR.