AMID the many efforts to persuade travellers to switch to public transport, the disclosure by a users' watchdog of improvements over the past year in a major rail service operating through East Lancashire will be seen as an extra encouragement.

And this is all the more so as the Rail Passengers' Committee reports that even greater improvements would have been achieved on the Trans-Pennine, which runs from Blackpool to Scarborough via Blackburn, Accrington and Burnley, had it not been affected by industrial action over several months.

Even so, punctuality rates rose -- by five per cent so that 85 per cent of trains arrive within ten minutes of their scheduled time.

And the reliability of services increased to 98.7 per cent, just short of the government benchmark of 99 per cent.

This better performance and these scores mean that the Trans-Pennine service is, in some aspects, close to fulfilling expectations that people rightly have if they are to trust and use public transport more.

But while they want trains to run when they should and turn up on time, they also want them to be clean, affordable, accessible and fast. And is it not a pity when this service is seen in some respects to be getting there -- though with still a considerable way to go -- that even greater improvement on the route is being handicapped by investment being concentrated on the Manchester-Leeds route across the Pennines while trains on the line through East Lancashire creep along at an average of just 41 mph?