Network Rail's chief executive has blamed the extreme weather conditions of this year - a hurricane in January and floods in recent weeks for causing major delays to trains on its network (link below.)
http://www.rmtbristol.org.uk/2007/07/network_rail_clocks_up_10m_min.html#more

The company's annual general meeting in Manchester heard that adverse weather cause a significant increase in the delays to train services - a total of 10.5m minutes on the rail network last year , according to John Armitt. Each lost minute costs the company an average of £10.

Another major impact on delays had been cable theft from the railway network which coincided with the rising copper price. There were 378 cable thefts in a 70-day period - roughly six a day and this led to 150,000 minutes being lost as a direct result.

The vast majority of lost minutes (7.7m) were caused by Network Rail , but 2.8m were due to external factors , such as theft and the weather.

The company recorded a profit of £1.035bn , reversing a £253m loss for the previous year.

A motion , by Stewart Palmer , the managing director of South West Trains on behalf of the train operating companies , which accused the company of underperforming received widespread derision from the other members at the AGM. He said: "The challenge is we genuinely believe Network Rail can and should be doing better. " He said the motion was not intended to be adversarial.

But Jonathan Bray , a delegate , said it had been a clumsy attempt by a train operating company to discredit the Network Rail model in favour of their own short term interests. He claimed it was hypocritical and added: "People in glasshouses should not be throwing stones - especially when the panes of glass have got the Great Western logo on them." Earlier , various delegates had criticised the company for its delays and allegedly dirty trains.