Passengers using Britain's train network are faced with "some of the worst performances on Britain's railways for decades", a passengers watchdog has said.

The Rail Passenger's Council, a body set up by the government to protect the interests of rail users, said problems on the rail network since the Hatfield rail crash had shown up the "rotten state of the railways".

The 2000/01 annual report from the RPC launched a strongly-worded attack on the privatisation and fragmentation of the railways by John Major's Conservative government.

Hatfield was "the final unravelling of the most ill-considered privatisation" the RPC said.

Launching the report, RPC chairman Stewart Francis added: "It is now six years since the first privatised train ran and some passengers are still waiting to see any tangible evidence of improvement."

On the recent problems that brought chaos and disruption to the network as emergency speed restrictions were introduced post-Hatfield, Francis said: "This has probably been the worst peace-time disruption ever for passengers and there is still no sign of long-term improvement."

He added that after Hatfield, the industry's contract culture and economic architecture "crumbled" and that "passengers have had an appalling year".

However, there was a fall in the number of complaints received by the RPC during the year. They fell four per cent from 14,666 in 1999/2001 to 14,149 in 2000/01.

"There is no obvious answer for this overall reduction, but a revision to our method of recording complaints could go some way to explaining an apparent discrepancy," said the RPC.

Representatives of the railway industry agreed that the last year had seen poor services for customers.

George Muir, director-general of the Association of Train Operating Companies, told BBC Radio that the industry was "looking forward" and dealing with the problems caused by infrastructure problems on the network.

Muir also called for the government to "grasp the nettle" of funding Railtrack properly. That call was endorsed by the RPC which said that uncertainty about Railtrack's funding needed to be resolved and that the Strategic Rail Authority should publish its plan for the railways as soon as possible.

Adding to the bad news for the railways, new figures from the Health and Safety Executive showed that the number of train Signals Passed At Danger (SPAD) incidents rose in July 2001 compared with a year earlier.

There were 50 SPADs in July 2001 compared to 31 in July 2000. Sixteen of the incidents were classed as serious. However, the HSE said the figures were still lower than those seen before the 1999 Paddington rail crash.