The Office of Rail Regulation (ORR) has reported a decline in rail freight in the first of its quarterly data reports.

The report states "freight performance continues to be adversely affected" by the landslip at Hatfield Colliery from February. It reports the freight performance measure to be at 76 per cent in the first quarter of 2013 - 1.2 percentage points below the same period last year. This has consequently resulted in "on-going diversions to freight traffic".

ORR also reported decline in other rail areas as well. The public performance measure moving annual average - a recording unit of trains arriving on time or within five minutes for short journeys and ten minutes for longer trips - for the first quarter was at 1.8 per cent for London and 0.2 per cent for the south east.

Despite an encouraging performance, these figures were below those for the previous year's quarter. The regulator suggests this is down to rainfall and flooding.

It will release a further report on passenger rail usage on September 19th and its findings on freight rail usage on October 3rd.