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Network Rail (NR) chiefs are under pressure to forego bonuses after rail regulators said that the company failed to meet some performance targets.
The Office of Rail Regulation (ORR) said it had written to the NR committee that decides on bonuses pointing out the company's shortcomings.
These included an "unsatisfactory" performance on the West Coast Main Line on which a huge £9 billion upgrade programme has just been completed.
The ORR said it had given NR until the middle of this month to produce a credible plan for improving performance on the line. It said failure to do so would mean regulators would have to consider whether NR was in breach of its licence - something that could trigger a fine.
The ORR also said the rail infrastructure company had presided over an increase in delays caused by signalling problems and was perceived by train and freight companies as being "bureaucratic and unresponsive". Also, NR failed - by 4% - to reach its ORR-set target of making efficiency savings of 31% between 2003/04 and 2008/09.
The company's bosses are eligible for annual performance-related bonuses as well as an additional bonus as part of a rolling three-year management incentive plan. Details of this year's bonuses are due to be released at the end of this month.
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Chief executive Iain Coucher has already said he will forego any annual bonus this year but he is still eligible for the incentive scheme payment. Last year Mr Coucher got an annual bonus of more than £305,000 and a further £205,000 bonus under the incentive scheme. This was despite the company being fined a record £14 million by the ORR for three serious engineering work overruns during the Christmas and new year 2007/08 period.
ORR chief executive Bill Emery has written to NR's remuneration committee saying it would need to explain "how and why" it reached its decisions on this year's bonuses.
Mr Emery said: "Network Rail's performance over the past year has been mixed. While it has met many of its regulatory targets, it has missed others. Most notably, it has failed to make the efficiency savings expected of it over the five-year period to April 2009, and has fallen short of the levels of performance passengers and the industry expect on the West Coast Main Line."
The ORR's comments came as it published a report on the railways. Earlier, NR announced that it made a pre-tax profit of £1.52 billion last year but its net debt rose to more than £22 billion. The pre-tax profit for 2008/09 was roughly comparable with the £1.59 billion figure achieved in 2007/08. But the not-for-dividend company said its net debt had risen from £19.7 billion to £22.3 billion.
