The head of Aberdeen's tourist agency has described the condition of Scotland's north-eastern rail links as an "abject disgrace".
Steve Harris, chief executive of Visit Aberdeen, said poor rail connections to the Granite City are stifling both tourist interest and opportunities for commercial growth.
He argued the city has become increasingly isolated while the Central Belt has benefited from significant transport upgrades.
Journey times between Glasgow and Edinburgh are currently being reduced thanks to a £700 million project to electrify the line
A further £300 million has been committed to reopen the former Borders railway line from Edinburgh to Tweedbank, near Galashiels.
Mr Harris said that in contrast, Aberdeen has had no significant investment in the last 50 years and as a result has been condemned to "third-world" status.
He said: "Aberdeen is the one of most economically successful cities in the UK but it has been completely neglected by recent governments.
"It's unbelievable there has been no significant investment in the links here for the past 50 years.
"We need to sustain this vibrant city here and a lack of rail connectivity will be a handicap to that.
"Commercial and tourist opportunities for the city are being hampered due to the lengthy journey time, which can be as much as six hours to travel up and down the country.
"The city attracts more visits from Scandinavia and England because it is much easier and much quicker to get here by flying from these destinations than it is getting the train from Glasgow or Edinburgh."
He called for urgent Government action to ensure that rail links to Aberdeen were improved.
He said: "It has got to the stage where the route from the Central Belt is now third-world in nature while huge amounts of money has been spent on cutting an extra five minutes off the journey time from Glasgow to Edinburgh.
"It's an abject disgrace that the rail system to the city of Aberdeen still uses semaphore signals on its lines, for example.
"I'm fed up hearing excuses that it's someone else's fault. We need action on this.
"Someone needs to take responsibility so visitors don't have their journeys interrupted by having to pull in to wait for the 'down' train on their route north."
Transport Scotland said the north-east will benefit from a raft proposals it has previously announced.
A spokesman said: "The specification for the next ScotRail franchise, currently under procurement, incentivises improved inter-city journey times, better in-train service and encourages tourism.
"The north-east will benefit from a previously announced £170 million package of improvements to Aberdeen to Inverness line, due for delivery by 2019. There are also improvements in infrastructure being developed for Aberdeen-Central Belt to reduce journey times and increase capacity."
Meanwhile, Virgin may be set to drop its London-to-Aberdeen flights, just 18 months after they were first launched.
The Little Red flights were conceived as the airline looked to challenge the British Airways' stranglehold on domestic flights out of Heathrow.
Virgin hoped the services would feed passengers from the north-east and Edinburgh into its long-haul network.
However, a lack of passenger numbers on Little Red flights could see the service axed as Virgin focuses on its North Atlantic routes.
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