MP Greg Pope today called for urgent action to improve train services from London to the North West after Railtrack boss Gerald Corbett took the blame for a "truly dreadful" performance.

He admitted that the track owning company was responsible for the problems on the West Coast main line after Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott, Labour MP Tony Lloyd and Tory Nicholas Winterton attacked the "shoddy and shabby" Virgin trains on the route from London Euston to Preston connecting to Accrington, Blackburn, Burnley and Colne.

An angry dispute has led to Virgin threatening to take Railtrack to court for wrecking their ability to provide a good and punctual service. They launched strong criticism of it in the Commons earlier this week, but today Railtrack Chief Executive Mr Corbett held his hand up and accepted the blame for the problems. He said: "I apologise to anyone using the Euston service in the last month because I am afraid it has been truly dreadful, largely down to us and our contractors.

"We are doing a hell of a lot of work and the way we have done the work has not been good enough and that's caused all the delays and I am sorry about that."

He said that although delays were "not acceptable" and there had been "basic errors" -- such as having a different contractors doing maintenance and the modernisation.

Mr Pope said: 'I welcome this apology. Its the first time Railtrack have admitted its their fault.

"I know all about this line, having spent five hours recently on a journey that should have taken two-and-a-half.

"The apology is the first step but now Railtrack need to do something about it. The travelling public deserves better."