A TRAIN company has come bottom of the pile for having dirty toilets.

Northern Rail was awarded just two out of five stars for the cleanliness of its toilets and the general condition of its trains in a survey by Which? magazine.

The ratings were the joint lowest in the country.

The operator - which used 30-year-old Pacer trains on many routes - was given an overall customer satisfaction score of 49 per cent, which placed the company 15th out of 21 train companies across the country.

First TransPennine Express was in joint 11th place with a satisfaction rating of 53 per cent while East Coast - with 62 per cent - was joint fourth.

Grand Central got the highest score with 72 per cent.

The results were based on responses from 7,309 travellers who were asked about journeys they had taken in the 12 months ending in November 2014.

The findings were published as official figures from the Office of Rail Regulation (ORR) show rail passengers are paying more for services, while Government funding of the railways is falling.

The OCC report showed that Northern Rail got 66 per cent of its funding from Government subsidies in 2013/14 - the highest percentage in the country - while First TransPennine got 49 per cent from the taxpayer.

Publicly owned East Coast was one of two operators to make a surplus.

A Northern Rail spokeswoman said: “We will take these comments on board. We know we can always do more to meet our passengers’ expectations.”

“Independent watchdog Passenger Focus surveys up to three times as many people a year and last month reported 78 per cent of our customers were satisfied with our service.”

The Northern Echo has launched the Right Lines campaign to push for a better service for North-East rail users.