Passengers have voted Southeastern and Southern the two worst train companies in Britain.

In a Which? survey of all 25 rail services, Southeastern, which serves most of Kent, came second from bottom at number 24 and Southern Railway, which has been dogged by disputes and strikes, came last.

Southeastern scored only 39% for satisfaction and Southern Railway limped home with 28%. Both received only two stars for not having enough seats or standing space, and the condition of carriages.

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Both were also given one star – the lowest mark possible – for value for money.

The survey, released today, comes after both announced record rises in the cost of tickets.

Commuters complained about “hellish” and “awful” journeys, rude staff, dirty carriages, shortened trains leading to a lack of seats and above-inflation fare hikes.

Southeastern scored slightly better, with three stars, for the frequency of its trains, while Southern scored two stars.

It also beat Southern - which serves Sussex, Surrey and a small part of Kent - for reliability and punctuality, which both gained two stars.

But neither came close to top performer Grand Central, which scored 64% in the satisfaction survey and a consistent four stars in all categories.

Translink NI Railways came second with 62% and Virgin trains West Coast came third with 61%.

A spokesman for Which? said: “Commuters generally have little say over when they travel to work, and with which train company.

“It is therefore vital they claim compensation when their train is delayed.

“Not all train companies make it easy to get a refund in the event of late-running or cancelled trains, so Which? is campaigning for automatic compensation for rail passengers.”

Southeastern runs 2,016 passenger trains on weekdays, 1,755 on Saturdays and 967 on Sundays making it one of the biggest and busiest National Rail operators in the country. It manages 166 stations and serves 174 stations.

Southern is owned by Govia Thameslink Railway and runs trains from the South Coast to London and Tonbridge to London. It operates 2,242 passenger trains during the week, 2,076 on Saturdays and 1,242 on Sundays - and has 156 stations.

A spokesman for Govia Thameslink Railway, parent company of Southern, Thameslink and Great Northern said: “Much of the disruption on Southern Railway has been caused by union opposition to our modernisation programme which is being carried out to transform services on the most congested routes in the country.

“The Which? analysis fails to take into account the unique and complex challenges that face GTR compared to other train operators.

“Southern also operates a commuter service of over 2,200 services a day and is compared with other firms which operate far fewer trains and, in many cases, operate on long distance leisure routes.

“Services are improving and we will introduce an enhanced train timetable in May to give passengers better reliability on Southern and a greatly expanded Thameslink network, creating 35,000-40,000 more seats into London.

“We have already replaced the entire Thameslink fleet and started to bring in more new trains to our Cambridge and Peterborough route, from where, in just four months’ time, we’ll have new direct cross-London services to Gatwick and beyond.

“The majority of delays are outside our control but Network Rail is investing £300m to improve reliability of the infrastructure.

“As operators of the UK’s largest rail franchise, accounting for more one fifth of all UK rail journeys, we are confident that our trailblazing achievements will be felt by rail travellers for generations to come.”

A Southeastern spokesman said: “We are dedicated to making journeys better for our passengers and have invested more than £70m in improving customer service training, train reliability and station facilities as part of a long-term plan for change.

“The most recent National Rail Passenger Survey results showed that passenger satisfaction has significantly improved and that, when asked about the last journey they took with us, eight in 10 of our passengers are satisfied.

“We have seen a 40% growth in passenger numbers in the past decade and acknowledge the concerns about overcrowding in busy peak times which is why we’ve already introduced extra carriage on key routes, benefitting our customers on Mainline as well as Metro services.

“Working together with Network Rail, we’re also helping to deliver major improvements for passengers such as the rebuilding of London Bridge station.”

Southeastern says the number of its passengers who are satisfied has jumped from 70% to 81% in the past year.

Despite a dip in performance since the start of 2018, performance has been better over the last few months.

The spokesman added: “We’ve been working together with Network Rail to prevent incidents from happening and to improve our reaction to them when they do.

“We now have a Joint Performance team which sits together in one place and shares the knowledge they have, to make decisions quickly and effectively."