c2c is Britain's top performing railway

Performance figures released today by Network Rail show that c2c is Britain's most punctual and reliable railway. With an average performance (punctuality and reliability combined) of 93.7% for the year, c2c's highest annual average ever, it has overtaken Merseyrail, who were previously at the top of the league.

The good news does not, however, stop there. Over the past four week period c2c's peak punctuality figures reached 98.3% and its all day performance reached 95.28%.

Commenting on the announcement, Leila Frances, route director, c2c said, We have been at the top of the southeast league for most of this year. Now to achieve the status of the Train Operating Company with the best average performance of the year is a great achievement. This is both a reward for our staff and Network Rail who have worked so hard to ensure that c2c offer consistently good performance, and an encouragement for our customers to know that their railway is the best performing railway in the country - a service to be proud of.

In addition to this piece of good news, we will shortly be bringing back three trains that were loaned to the 'one' train company. This means we will be able to increase 3 of our morning peak trains from 8 to 12 carriages, and the same again in the evening, providing some 800 extra seats in each of the morning and evening peak periods.

I would like to thank my staff and Network Rail for their dedication to the route and enthusiastic teamwork which has brought about an amazing transformation of the service over the past few years, and to thank my customers for their loyalty and support which I am delighted to be able reward with a quality rail service.

c2c operates an entirely new fleet of trains, built specifically for the route and introduced in 2001.