ANGRY Selby commuters grilled a Northern Spirit representative for nearly two hours - accusing the company of a "serious lack of information".

More than 20 members of the Selby Rail Users' Group questioned service manager Peter Myers at a special meeting at Scott Road Community Centre.

Northern Spirit operates the Selby to Leeds service, which has been beset by problems since the Hatfield disaster and the improvements to Leeds City Station.

Commuters asked Mr Myers why there was such a lack of information at Selby Station concerning what trains would be running and at what time.

Group secretary Reg French said: "Unfortunately the staff at Selby booking office had no computer information and had to rely on signalmen to tell them what was going on. The staff deserve praise because they did what they could. "Someone from Northern Spirit control should have provided the details."

Members told Mr Myers they couldn't understand why written train and coach information could not have been put up a couple of days in hand.

Mr Myers acknowledged passenger information "should have been better" but explained that a lot of the problems were out of their hands. He said much of the chaos was caused by Railtrack over-running engineering works at Leeds Station. But Mr French hit back claiming many of the delays were directly caused by Northern Spirit not being able to service their trains and giving out wrong information.

He said: "We are not satisfied with some of the answers that have been given. Northern Spirit can't blame Railtrack for everything. Information is a general problem that must be overcome."

Mr Myers told members he would follow up questions he was unable to answer.

Northern Spirit spokesman Howard Keal said: "We're very keen to hear people's views and take them on board. We fully realise the importance of keeping people informed with the up-to-the-minute information. We will be looking very closely at how we can improve this.

"We apologise for any inconvenience."

Updated: 12:26 Wednesday, January 24, 2001