Britain's biggest coach and rail company, National Express, has said that passenger revenue in its rail businesses remains unsteady.

"Passenger revenues in the trains division remained variable", National Express said.

Rail takings from the firm's rail franchises were overall showing "no improvement", with ScotRail still suffering from the hangover of a series of one day strikes over pay in March.

But Midland Mainline was seeing passenger growth, while services run by East Anglian operator WAGN were back to normal following the fatal rail crash at Potters Bar.

Overall, group trading remained "in line with market expectations", Tuesday's statement said.

Foreign operations

National Express said its bus and coach businesses in the UK were continuing to make good progress.

The group also runs school bus services in North America and railways and trams in Australia.

National Express will publish results for the first six months of this year on 17 September.

In the City, National Express shares stood 2p higher at 582p in lunchtime trade.