More than 90% of Scotland's trains arriving on time

Statistics suggested that 93% of First Scotrail trains were punctual

More than 90% of trains on Scotland's rail network are arriving on time, according to the latest figures from Network Rail.

First Scotrail trains were punctual 93% of the time in the period from 3 February to 2 March.

But cross-border services did not fare as well, with 74% East Coast trains and up to 87% of Virgin trains arriving on time.

Infrastructure problems were cited as the main cause of the delays.

Network Rail measures punctuality for all trains across the whole network, including cancelled services and delays caused by external factors such as vandalism or extreme weather.

Severe delays

A train is considered on time if it arrives either early or within 59 seconds of the scheduled time.

Network Rail said several events had impacted heavily on the Anglo-Scottish routes.

These included a failure of the overhead wires, causing severe delays for all operators on the route - including the East Coast Main Line.

Meanwhile, major infrastructure failures of the overhead wires at Hanslope on the West Coast Main Line had an impact on Virgin Trains.

A Network Rail spokesman said: "The Scottish rail network enjoyed a strong performance in February and we remain on course to achieve our punctuality target for the current financial year.

"Cross-border services were affected by significant infrastructure faults at the southern ends of those routes, but the company will work hard to improve cross-border performance in the months ahead."

Improving reliability

An East Coast spokesman said: "All three of the incidents which caused greatest delay to East Coast services in this period were due to problems with the infrastructure of the route, which is the responsibility of Network Rail.

"East Coast has instigated working with Network Rail on its infrastructure issues, which are the leading cause of this dip in service performance.

"A joint performance stability plan is in place with the aim of quickly restoring our services to the consistent and improving reliability we delivered during much of 2012."

Virgin Trains said: "We know we can do better in getting more trains to run on time and we work tirelessly with our infrastructure partner Network Rail to improve performance for customers, to whom we apologise. "