RAILWAY vandalism has increased by a third in the last six years, a top Conservative has warned.

Shadow transport secretary Chris Grayling released official figures showing numbers of incidents in which police recorded damage to trains, stations, tracks and depots have shot up from 5,637 in 1999-2000 to 7,450 last year.

This comes the day after the Advertiser reported that the number of incidents of vandalism and trespass recorded by Network Rail on the Swindon stretch of track is rising at a worrying rate.

Network Rail released its logs for the last six months and warned that this week, being the summer half term week, is feared to be a high-risk time for youngsters dicing with death on the railways.

Mr Grayling said: "'Vandalism disrupts train services, and at worst can even lead to derailments. The Government really must get to grips with the problem. We've had promise after promise of action against anti-social behaviour of this kind over the years, but in the end nothing actually seems to happen."

But the Department of Transport, which produced the figures in response to parliamentary questions from Mr Grayling, said that the results for 1999-2000 and 2005-06 were not comparable, as the methods for recording vandalism statistics had been changed in 2002.

In a note attached to the figures, rail minister Derek Twigg said a graffiti crackdown launched by British Transport Police in 2003 had doubled the number of spray-paint vandals detected and led to a string of convictions, but had also resulted in a 75 per cent rise in reported offences.