Official figures show that national performance has fallen again, with punctuality at just 89.3% for period 8.

The main disruption came on the West Coast Main Line, although most franchises figures have dropped. Fortunately, some action is being taken to make up for the infrastructure problems that contributed to such poor performance.

With extra funding to replace sections of track, this could help performance to increase, and turn around the pattern of falling punctuality.

Cable theft continues to be a huge problem for the railway, and hopefully a collaboration of new strategies and traditional techniques will soon start to see some positive results, reflected in national performance.

However, external factors can only account for part of this reduction in performance, and both franchise operators and Network Rail must acknowledge this failure, and commit to concrete steps to improve performance.

For what good is extending our network with new infrastructure projects and extra lines if we cannot keep our current railway up to standard?