Before 1996, rail services in Sussex were anything but efficient. Cancellations, delays and dirty, overcrowded trains became synonymous with British Rail's performance in the South.

All that was meant to change at the dawn of privatisation. Taking the industry out of public hands and into the private sector was proclaimed by Conservative politicians as a panacea for all the ills that had plagued rail users in Britain.

Network SouthCentral, later Connex South Central, won the franchise to run many services in the county, including Brighton to London trains.

It got off to a flying start in 1997 by exceeding reliability targets set by the Rail Users' Consultative Committee, a commuters' pressure group.

But despite new services being introduced and tens of millions of pounds being channelled into improvements, hopes that privatisation would make life easier for Sussex commuters were short-lived.

In the past three years, Connex has presided over crumbling performance levels.

In March 1998, the Rail Users' Consultative Committee reported how complaints against the firm had rocketed, with 31 trains a week being cancelled in the preceding 12 months.

The same year the Office of Passenger Rail Franchising revealed the firm was among the worst in the country. It said fare increases ought to be restricted to 0.5 per cent in 1999. Connex disagreed and increased off-peak fares by an average of 6.5 per cent.

In 1999, Hove MP Ivor Caplin wrote to the Deputy Prime Minister, John Prescott, urging him to take action against the firm's "unacceptably poor train service".

The catalogue of bad news culminated in a humiliating report by the Shadow Strategic Rail Authority last month. This ranked the firm's performance as the worst in the country, with nearly a quarter of travellers dissatisfied with its service.

If commuters and rail watchdogs had spent three years sticking the knife into Connex, Nicholas Soames twisted it in May.

The MP for Mid Sussex, whose own Conservative Party presided over the break-up of the railways, said Connex's bid to keep its licence should be "viewed with cynicism".

Ken Livingstone, the new Mayor of London, was of the same opinion.

He joined in the attack this month by saying he would be "surprised" if the firm won his support for winning the franchise.

It is against this bleak backdrop that the Shadow Strategic Rail Authority will decide in the next few weeks whether Thameslink, which also runs services between Brighton and London, or Connex is given the franchise to run the service.

The authority will award it to whichever company can improve services, develop customer service initiatives and invest in expanding the rail network.

Thameslink has said it wants to change the entire culture of commuting by keeping ticket price rises down, updating stations and cutting travel times.

Despite the grand talk, Thameslink's record for cancellations and failing to run to timetables was worse than that of Connex South Central in punctuality tables published last December.

Shelley Atlas, chairman of passengers' group Brighton Line Commuters, said: "What we want more than anything else is a good service. The priority must be to make stations nicer places.

"We get very fed up with what's going on, especially with companies which make big promises when the franchise is up for renewal.

"They're like political parties in the run-up to an election and when things settle down things just go back to normal."

Connex's top brass gathered in London yesterday for a Press conference to put across the message that there was light at the end of the tunnel and it has learned lessons from its past performance.

There was also the matter of a £1.45 billion investment programme, something Miss Atlas thinks akin to a politician's pre-election pledge.

Standing before a projector screen which bore the words We Could Do Better, Olivier Brousse, Connex's new managing director, admitted the firm needed to raise its game to deal with a huge rise in customers - particularly on the Brighton-London line.

He highlighted a shortage of drivers, dirty toilets, graffiti-hit trains and customer service as priority areas.

If Connex won the franchise, he said, a total of £769 million would be spent on rolling stock, £537 million would go on new tracks and signalling, £105 million would be pumped into stations, £20 million would go on car parks and £17 million on depots.

He said: "We could have done better. There's no excuse for a dirty train or toilet. Recruiting drivers is difficult but achievable. We are putting a lot of money in to raise our game.

"Connex is under pressure and Connex is changing quickly. The company has never been busier than in the last six months. We are working day and night. We have learned from our past but now it's time to deliver."

A spring cleaning operation has been launched to smarten up trains. Connex has also taken on extra cleaning staff at Brighton, Eastbourne and Bognor to tackle litter.

It is opening a creche at Brighton station next week where families can leave their children during trips away.

The centrepiece of Connex's pledge to clean up its act is a new high-speed train service which it intends to run between Sussex and London.

The Class 375 100mph, air-conditioned trains will be able to complete the journey in 45 minutes. Connex has ordered 120 of them, some of which will be used on that route.

Yesterday, Mr Brousse said it might take commuters "a couple of months" to see the improvements, by which time the winner of the bid will have been announced.

It is the timing of the improvement programme that concerns Miss Atlas.

She said: "We all get a bit cynical when firms make all these promises.

"I think Connex and Thameslink are pretty much the same.

"We just want whoever wins the franchise to honour their promises and make a real concerted effort to deliver."