Management of train services by the Government, operator Govia Thameslink and Network Rail have been branded “completely inadequate” and “a multi-faceted shambles” in an extraordinarily damning Parliamentary report.

The Parliamentary Accounts Committee concluded yesterday that the Department for Transport’s management of two of its most important franchises has been completely inadequate.

It said passengers on the Thameslink, Southern and Great Northern franchise have suffered an “appalling level of delays and cancellations” since the franchise started in 2014.

At one point, less than two thirds of trains arrived on time. The report concludes: “This totally unacceptable state of affairs which caused misery for passengers was due to a catalogue of failures by the Department, Network Rail and the operator, Govia Thameslink.

“The Department was too ambitious about what could be achieved, and it overlooked the poor condition of the infrastructure of the rail network. The Department was also ambivalent about the risk of industrial action and neglected to engage constructively with rail unions.

The Department failed to see, or chose not to see, the perfect storm of an ambitious upgrade programme coupled with plans to increase driver controlled operation of trains.

While there has been some improvement recently and there are signs that Network Rail and Govia Thameslink are now working together more effectively, we remain sceptical that this will address the serious and deep-rooted problems we have identified.”

A spokesman for Govia Thameslink said: “As the National Audit Office identified in a recent report, we have faced a wide range of difficulties since being formed in 2014.

Not least among these was the industrial action which has been the primary cause of service disruption, according to the Gibb report.

"We regret the impact this has had on passengers. We have been making good progress to improve reliability.”

A spokesman for the DfT said: “It is disappointing to see the committee has produced such an imbalanced report that fails to grasp the complexity of the situation.”

Mark Carne, Network Rail chief executive, said: “It is impossible to set a target for train performance without considering the capability of the infrastructure, so we have increased our involvement in franchise planning.”