The future of Bradford's rail network is set to be discussed in Government talks tomorrow.

Bradford North Labour MP Terry Rooney will meet Transport Secretary Alistair Darling, following a decision to drop Bradford from the new Trans-Pennine franchise.

The decision means that the city's rail network will now miss out on a share of £260 million of investment from the franchise to be run by transport company FirstGroup.

Instead, Bradford rail services will revert to the new Northern franchise for local and rural services, which will not start for about two years.

"No-one is going to invest any money in the area until the Northern Rail franchise gets awarded, which is why we are in limbo at the moment," Mr Rooney said.

"If we can get FirstGroup to add services on routes east to west, it could bring more investment in for the routes travelling north to south."

The Rail Passengers Committee watchdog has issued its guidance to bidders for the Northern Rail franchise.

The document says the new franchise operator will be expected to focus on a range of areas, including reliability, punctuality, local integration and disabled access. But Alec Suchi, secretary of the Bradford Rail Users Group, said the new franchise was unlikely to improve Bradford's rail services.

"The Northern franchise won't bestow anything on Bradford because the city doesn't have through lines," he said, "In the past we have lost so many direct service links to places like Sheffield, Wakefield, Liverpool and Hull."

Councillor Stanley King, a member of the West Yorkshire Passenger Transport Authority, said the organisation would continue to fight for the rights of Bradford rail users.

"Considering the amount of work, investment and time that we've put into Bradford's rail network, we deserve much better treatment. We have got to keep lobbying to be included in the Trans-Pennine bid," he said.

An important factor was the need to reduce train journey times to encourage more people to use rail, according to Councillor King. He said electrification of the Bradford to Manchester route was one of the main areas that should be included in any new franchise.