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Performance at South Western Railway has taken a nosedive in the months following its transition to state ownership, the first network to do so.

It comes as increased scrutiny is placed on the government's nationalisation initiative, particularly after recent announcements of further lines set to be made public.

In the three months post-nationalisation in May, delays and cancellations have seen a significant rise, according to City AM, with worsening issues over time indicating a downward performance trend.

Compared to the beginning of the year, cancellations on South Western Railway have risen by an average of 50 per cent in the three months following the Department for Transport (DfT) taking ownership.

Despite operating a reduced service throughout much of the summer, delayed minutes per 100 miles have surged by up to 29 per cent between June and August. Services arriving between 30 minutes and an hour late have more than doubled.

Tony Lodge, a research fellow at the Centre for Policy Studies, said: "This is a very worrying and early portent of Labour's plans to nationalise train services.

"Passengers are clearly already suffering as civil servants take charge. Performance and efficiency is falling away just months before rail fares rise again," as reported by .

The revelations, secured through a Freedom of Information request, represent the first glimpse into how effectively ministers are managing their flagship railway nationalisation initiative, emerging just days after the government unveiled the next tranche of lines destined for public control.

Labour pledged in its manifesto to create Great British Railways in an effort to overhaul a fragmented and struggling railway network that has endured years of harsh criticism regarding substandard service and costly fares.

The party argued the new taxpayer-funded organisation, which was established shortly after Labour assumed power in December last year, would "reduce delays, improve reliability and reduce cost" across the rail network.

South Western Railway was the first operator to forfeit its licence under a staged implementation, with transport secretary Heidi Alexander describing it as a "watershed moment" in the government's campaign to "return the railways to the services of passengers".

Last week, the DfT announced its intentions to bring Greater Anglia and West Midlands Trains into public ownership in October and next February respectively, before Thameslink undergoes nationalisation in May next year.

Ministers also indicated that services run by Chiltern Railways and Great Western Railway will be transferred at a subsequent date next year.

A representative for Network Rail and South Western Railway said: "While our performance over the last few months has not met what we or our customers rightly expected, it is not linked in any way to our transfer to public ownership."

A spokeswoman for the Department for Transport (DfT) said: "South Western Railway continues to face long-standing issues inherited from previous private sector ownership, and it will take time to root these out – but that is exactly why we are bringing all operators back under public control and what we want to do through Great British Railways.

"SWR's move into public ownership has facilitated closer working between SWR and Network Rail, bringing track and train together to enable more passenger-focussed planning and decision making."