Virgin Trains

Virgin Trains (legal name West Coast Trains Limited) is a train operating company in the United Kingdom owned by Virgin Rail Group, a joint venture between the Virgin Group and Stagecoach, that has operated the InterCity West Coast franchise since 9 March 1997. Virgin Trains operates long-distance passenger services on the West Coast Main Line between London, West Midlands, North West England, North Wales and Scotland. The service connects six of the UK's largest cities; London, Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool, Glasgow and Edinburgh, which have a combined metropolitan population of over 18 million people.

The Virgin Trains brand has also been used on the legally and operationally separate Virgin Trains East Coast from 2015 until 2018, and previously on Virgin CrossCountry, which operated between 1997 and 2007. Virgin has around 3,400 employees. The franchise is due to expire on 7 December 2019 (originally March 2020). Virgin will not contest retaining the franchise after its joint venture partner Stagecoach was disqualified due to an invalid bid in April 2019.

History
Virgin Rail Group was awarded the InterCity West Coast franchise in January 1997 after beating Sea Containers and Stagecoach with operations commencing on 9 March 1997. In October 1998 Virgin Group sold 49% of the shares in Virgin Rail Group to Stagecoach.

When Virgin won the franchise, Railtrack was to upgrade the West Coast Main Line to allow tilting trains to operate at 140 mph by 2005. In the wake of the collapse of Railtrack and the inability of Network Rail to deliver on the 140 mph West Coast Main Line upgrade, both the Virgin CrossCountry and Virgin Trains West Coast franchises were suspended in favour of management contracts in July 2002. Due to costs having blown out from £2.5 billion to £10 billion there were cutbacks to the upgrade and the top speed reduced to 125 mph.

Virgin Trains's franchise was due to expire in March 2012. In 2009 Richard Branson launched a campaign to have the next franchise period extended for 20 to 30 years, so that Virgin would be able to spend more on infrastructure and be able to see a return on investment. Branson said the journey time between London and Birmingham could be reduced by 22 minutes to under one hour. This was turned down by the Department for Transport. Virgin had applied for a two-year extension but this was ruled out by the Department of Transport on legal grounds.

In January 2011 the Department for Transport called for expressions of interest in bidding for the next InterCity West Coast franchise. In March 2011 the Department for Transport announced that Abellio, FirstGroup, Keolis/SNCF and Virgin Rail Group had been shortlisted to bid for the franchise. In May 2011 the Secretary of State announced the end date had been postponed to allow the recommendations in the McNulty Report to be absorbed. In October 2011 the Department for Transport announced that Virgin had been granted a franchise extension until December 2012.

The Invitation to Tender was issued to the shortlisted bidders in January 2012 with the Department for Transport awarding FirstGroup the new franchise in August 2012.

In October 2012 the Secretary of State for Transport announced the government was cancelling the franchise competition for the InterCity West Coast franchise after discovering significant technical flaws in the way the franchise process was conducted, reversing the decision to award it to FirstGroup. Following an independent review of the franchising process, a fresh competition will be held. The government announced it would negotiate with Virgin Trains to run the InterCity West Coast franchise for a further 9 to 13 months. In December 2012 Virgin was awarded a 23-month management contract to run the franchise until 9 November 2014.

In March 2013 the Secretary of State for Transport announced the franchise would again be extended until 31 March 2017.

In July 2013 the Office of Rail Regulation rejected an application by Virgin Trains to operate new services to Shrewsbury and Blackpool North, citing capacity constraints on the West Coast Main Line.

In November 2016, the franchise was further extended until March 2019.

In February 2018 the contract was extended until March 2019, within option to extend it to March 2020.

However, in March 2018 it was announced that the contract would end in September 2019 when the new West Coast Partnership franchise will commence.

In December 2018, it was announced that Virgin Trains had been granted a one-year extension until March 2020.

In August 2019 it was announced that the Inter-City West Coast franchise had been awarded to a partnership between First and Trenitalia thus confirming that Virgin Trains will cease to operate trains after 7 December 2019.

Services


In May 1998 Virgin introduced new services from London Euston to Shrewsbury and Blackpool North. The former ceased in 1999, the latter in May 2003. In December 2014, a daily weekday service between London Euston and Blackpool North and a twice daily service between London Euston and Shrewsbury were reintroduced. This was increased to 4 trains per day in the May 2018 timetable.

In September 2004 a London Euston to Llandudno service was introduced ceasing in December 2008.

In September 2005 Virgin introduced its first 125 mph timetable following the completion of Stage 1 of the upgrade.

In December 2007 as part of a reshuffle of rail franchises by the Department for Transport, services from Birmingham New Street to Edinburgh Waverley and Glasgow Central via Crewe were transferred from the CrossCountry franchise to the InterCity West Coast franchise.

In December 2008 a Wrexham General to London Euston service was introduced operating south in the morning with an evening return.

In February 2009 an hourly London Euston to Chester service was introduced.

From January 2009 Virgin Trains gradually rolled out a new "Very High Frequency" timetable to take advantage of the completed West Coast Main Line upgrade.

There were many timetable changes from 8 December 2013. These resulted in new timetables with services between Edinburgh/Glasgow and London services calling at Sandwell & Dudley, replacing the hourly Wolverhampton to Euston service. In addition most Liverpool services additionally call at Crewe. This has resulted in the latter being serviced by four Virgin trains in each direction per hour to/from London instead of the previous two.

Since December 2014, Virgin trains started running a direct service to and from Shrewsbury, initially once per day each way but later this increased to two daily services each way.



Notes

Extensions
The above table shows the regular off-peak service pattern; however, some services are extended beyond their usual destination. Extensions include:
 * beyond Birmingham New Street: 2 trains per day to Shrewsbury calling at Wolverhampton, Telford Central and Wellington;
 * beyond Chester: 1 train per day to Wrexham General only
 * also beyond Chester: 7 trains per day to Bangor calling at Flint (5tpd), Prestatyn (5tpd), Rhyl, Colwyn Bay and Llandudno Junction, with 6 of those extended one stop further to Holyhead.

In addition there are 4 trains per day between London Euston and Blackpool North, calling at Rugby, Stafford (1tpd), Crewe (1tpd), Warrington Bank Quay, Wigan North Western, Preston, Kirkham and Wesham (1tpd) and Poulton-le-Fylde (1tpd). These services operate at irregular intervals throughout the day.

Sponsorship
Virgin Trains were Carlisle United F.C.'s travel sponsor for the 2013–14 season, and for the 2014–15 season they are the club's main shirt sponsor agreeing a further two-year deal. On 5 August 2014 Virgin Trains also agreed to be the shirt sponsor of Preston North End F.C. on a two-year deal. Darlington Football Club are also sponsored by Virgin Trains, and the company has also sponsored events such as Manchester International Festival in 2013.

Onboard entertainment
In July 2016 the integrated infotainment system BEAM was provided on all trains by GoMedia, delivered directly to the passenger's own devices including mobile phones and tablets. The system is described by the rethinkresearch.biz website as 'the first in-train entertainment portal in the UK'. It offered premium movies from Hollywood studios, BBC Worldwide etc.

Moderation of competition
As a way of protecting the revenues of Virgin Trains to enable it to pay franchise premiums to the government to partly recoup the cost of the West Coast Main Line upgrade, the Office of Rail Regulation inserted a Moderation of Competition in Virgin's Track Access Agreement. Until its expiry in March 2012, this prevented any other train operating or open access companies operating services in competition that would abstract revenue.