Train passengers have been promised £2.5 million of benefits to compensate for the poor performance of Chiltern Railways' services.

Chiltern has been called in by the Office of Passenger Rail Franchising (OpRaf) four times in the last year for cancelling one per cent of its trains during four of its four-week operating periods.

The compensation will be offered to passengers who use lines from Marylebone to Birmingham via Harrow-on-the-Hill and to Aylesbury via Wembley Stadium, Sudbury and Harrow Road, Sudbury Hill Harrow and Northolt Park. Benefits include a week's free travel for season ticket holders, full refunds for journeys delayed by more than an hour and additional security at major stations.

The company has announced plans to reduce cancellations by replacing most engines, recruiting 20 more drivers and has agreed a joint initiative with Railtrack to tackle key infrastructure problems.

OpRaf franchising director John O'Brien said: "Passengers want a service they can rely on now, not a promise of a return to good service at some unspecified time in the future.

"The package of improvements offered will provide contractual commitments that will directly benefit passengers. The management also knows that any further breaches of acceptable levels could still lead to formal enforcement action."

Chiltern managing director Adrian Shooter said that since winning the franchise in July 1996 the company had increased its fleet by a quarter, peak services by a third and employed 20 per cent more staff.

"We have invested to enable us to carry more and more passengers," he said. "Numbers have increased by 10 per cent in the last year alone. We have, however, been less successful in running our services to time, something which we know is of paramount importance to all our passengers.

"We fully recognise that our recent performance track record has been unacceptable. The emphasis now is to restore punctuality."

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