Virgin Trains

Virgin Trains is a train operating company in the United Kingdom. It is generally considered part of the Virgin Group, although the shareholding is actually split 51:49 between Virgin Group and Stagecoach Group.

The company was formed to take advantage of the privatisation of British Rail in the mid 1990s. Virgin Trains were successful in the bids for two franchises, the first being to run express train services on the West Coast Main Line (WCML). This part of the company is called Virgin West Coast (VWC) and provides services from London Euston to the West Midlands, the North West and Scotland. The other franchise Virgin Trains obtained is called Virgin Cross-Country (VXC - see also Cross Country Route) and runs long distance services which bypass London and link the south and south-west of England with the north of England and Scotland via Birmingham. Unlike most other train operating companies, Virgin operates the two franchises as a single brand, although legally and operationally, they are separate companies.

West Coast Main Line service patterns

Virgin Trains run at least six trains per hour — weekdays, off peak — in and out of London’s Euston station. This is noticeably busier than GNER in and out of Kings Cross, who operate three or four per hour, and busier than Midland Mainline, who operate four trains per hour in/out of St Pancras. Details below are as per February 2006.

Manchester Piccadilly services are half hourly. They consist of the faster services at 35 past the hour (taking just 2 hours, 11 minutes) which call just at Stoke-on-Trent and Stockport, and the slower departures at 5 past the hour which call at Watford Junction or Milton Keynes Central (alternating, every two hours ), then Stoke-on-Trent, Macclesfield, and Stockport. The morning peak hour service from Manchester, and the late afternoon peak from Euston, is strikingly frequent with trains every ten or twenty minutes. The 0705 ex Piccadilly, with a stop at Stockport only, completes the journey in 2 hours 5 minutes. There is a daily ‘slow’ service at 0938 between Euston and Manchester via Northampton and Crewe, taking 3 hours 17 minutes for the complete journey.

West Midlands services are half hourly between Euston and Birmingham New Street, with trains continuing every hour to Wolverhampton. Trains leave Euston at 10 and 40 past the hour. The xx.10s call at Watford Junction, Coventry, Birmingham International and terminate at Birmingham New Street. The xx.40 departures call at Milton Keynes Central instead of Watford, then the same stops to Birmingham New Street and continuing to Wolverhampton, calling at Sandwell and Dudley. Journey time between Euston and Birmingham New Street is 1 hour 30 minutes.

Liverpool Lime Street services are hourly and leave Euston, generally, at 15 past the hour. They call at Watford Junction or Milton Keynes Central (alternating, two hourly at each), then at Nuneaton, Tamworth, Stafford, Crewe, and Runcorn. Journey time is two hours 30 minutes. There is an additional fast morning train from Lime Street to Euston at 0707. Calling only at Runcorn, this train completes the journey in just 2 hours 9 minutes. There is no equivalent late afternoon return, however.

Preston/Scotland services run hourly between Euston and Lancaster, with many trains now continuing to Carlisle and Glasgow Central and one per day continuing to Edinburgh. Trains leave Euston at 46 minutes past the hour calling at either Watford or Milton Keynes (two hourly, alternating) and then at Rugby, Crewe, Warrington, Wigan, Preston and Lancaster. North of Lancaster, most trains call at Oxenholme, Penrith and Carlisle with a number calling at Motherwell. Virgin Trains now run nine trains per day , each way, between Euston and Glasgow Central. The pattern is generally every two hours but there are now some hourly intervals and Virgin Trains intend to ‘fill in the gaps’ in time. The service compares favourably with GNER’s rival service from Kings Cross for both journey time and frequency. Typical journey times are just over five hours, but there are a couple of reduced stop express services - most notably the 1029 out of Euston which calls just at Preston and Carlisle and takes 4 hours 25 minutes. The 0949 out of Glasgow is the southbound equivalent. Virgin Trains is ‘testing the water’ with a daily Euston to Edinburgh service. This does not compare at all favourably with GNER’s service from Kings Cross, which is far faster and much more frequent.

Comparisons with mainline continental services suggest that Virgin and other UK operators have a long way to go in terms of both value for money and speed. Taking a typical mainline route (London to Glasgow). The best that Virgin can achieve is 4.25 hours. By comparison, a similar mainline route (Paris to Valence) takes 2 hours. Oddly, this difference is repeated (in an inverse fashion) in fare prices. An open first class return for the Virgin route is £328 by contrast it is £160 for the French/SNCF route.

North Wales: The line from Crewe to Holyhead — via Chester, Rhyl, Colwyn Bay, Llandudno Junction and Bangor — is not electrified, so services are mostly in the hands of Class 221 Super Voyager diesel-electric multiple units. One train a day between Euston and Holyhead is worked by a Pendolino, which is pulled by a Class 57 diesel locomotive over the Crewe - Holyhead sector. There are five trains per day in each direction between Euston, Chester and North Wales - four serving Holyhead and one serving Llandudno.

Due to the continuing works (as оf 2006) in quadrupling the Trent Valley section of the WCML, all Pendolino services north of Stafford are being routed via Birmingham New Street at weekends. This has an adverse effect on journey times - the Euston-Glasgow Central run for instance being pushed way over the 5hrs 30min mark.

Radical changes to service patterns on the West Coast are planned from 2008. It is proposed that Liverpool trains will be accelerated with just one intermediate stop at Runcorn. Frequencies from Euston to both Birmingham and Manchester will be increased to three per hour, with a regular hourly service to the latter via Crewe and Wilmslow to complement the existing half hourly service via Stoke on Trent. This service would also serve Stafford and Nuneaton to compensate for these points being omitted by the accelerated Liverpool services. There are also proposals for an increased frequency between Euston, Chester and North Wales. This could prove controversial as it may involve releasing 'Voyager' units from (already hard pressed) Cross Country. Journey times will be shortened by increasing the double track sections on the Trent Valley Line in the Lichfield and Tamworth area to quadruple track and also by a remodelling of the track layout at Rugby to allow for 125 mph running. There are even tentative proposals for 135 mph running over some sections.

Cross Country service patterns

Virgin Cross Country has easily the most extensive network of any franchise on the British railway system — stretching from as far north as Aberdeen to as far southeast as Brighton and as far southwest as Penzance. The hub of the network is Birmingham New Street. Apart from the Manchester – Glasgow/Edinburgh service and some early morning/late evening services at the extremities of the network, all services serve Birmingham. Services are operated using Class 220 and Class 221 Voyager DMUs, which are based at Central Rivers depot near Burton upon Trent, Staffordshire. However, Voyager units have been encountering serious technical problems as of late 2005/early 2006 and as a result other traction has been 'hired in'. Midland Mainline HST diesel units have been used on the Leeds/Newcastle – Plymouth sector whilst Class 90 electric locomotives, with Mk 2 coaches and Driving Van Trailers have been used on Birmingham – Manchester services.

There are four principal corridors radiating from Birmingham New Street, each with a half hourly service pattern. These are south eastwards to Reading, south westwards to Bristol, north westwards to Manchester and north eastwards to Derby and Sheffield. There is also an hourly pattern over the Birmingham – Preston – Scotland sector via the West Coast Main Line. Apart from early or late in the day, most services do not start or terminate at Birmingham but operate as through services (e.g. Manchester – Brighton, Glasgow – Penzance). The southerly terminating points are Reading, Brighton, Southampton, Bournemouth, Penzance, Plymouth and Cardiff. The northerly terminating points are Aberdeen, Dundee, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Newcastle and Manchester. The Manchester – Scotland service, via Carlisle, sees a two hourly pattern with four trains per day Manchester – Edinburgh and three per day Manchester – Glasgow. This is in the next few years to transfer to TransPennine Express. This will release the Voyager units for Holyhead workings. Glasgow will only be served by CrossCountry services via Edinburgh and the East Coast Main Line from 2007. Stations on the West Coast Mainline between Warrington Bank Quay and Lockerbie (inclusive) will lose all their Cross Country services, which will be replaced by a new service terminating at Birmingham New Street, operated by Virgin West Coast.

Performance

Virgin Trains has had a poor reputation for punctuality compared with some other transport operators. This perception seems to be a mixture of truth and media exaggeration. The company has now improved its punctuality and the figures published on Virgin Trains' website are consistent with this view [2]. During the year ending December 31, 2002, only 73.6% of West Coast trains and 62.5% of Cross-Country trains arrived within 10 minutes of the scheduled arrival time (source: SRA National Rail Trends). However Virgin has consitently improved it's punctuality and for the year ending December 31, 2005, Cross Country 'Voyager' services are up to 80.0% and the West Coast 'Pendolino' services up to 79.9% against an average of 80.8% for long-distance operators [3].

Problems with punctuality had been widely attributed by Virgin to the ageing and increasingly unreliable rolling stock and the equally ageing and outdated infrastructure on which it ran, although other train operating companies managed to operate the same equipment such as High Speed Trains with considerably greater reliability, implying that Virgin’s maintenance regime was partly to blame.

The introduction of the Pendolino stock on the West Coast Main Line and more modern diesel-electric trains on the Cross Country route are now helping improve reliability and punctuality as Virgin and Alstom resolve any teething problems with the Virgin Trains fleet.

Despite this however, Virgin has retained some of its elderly Mark 3 coaching stock and associated locomotives to provide back-up for any further teething problems with the Pendolinos and Voyagers.

Grayrigg derailment

Main article: Grayrigg derailment

On the evening of 23 February, 2007, a Virgin Trains service from London Euston to Glasgow Central derailed near Oxenholme in North West England. The train was the 17:15 service, headcode 1S83, from Euston and was a Class 390 Pendolino.^[1] The train was carrying about 180 people. Several carriages were left lying on the railway embankments. An 84-year-old woman, named as Margaret Masson, from Glasgow, died in the crash. Five seriously injured people were hospitalised suffering from back, neck and head injuries. One of those in a serious condition is the train driver, Iain Black, who has been hailed as a hero by Virgin boss Richard Branson. The accident was caused by a faulty set of points.^[2]

The past

On privatisation, Virgin West Coast inherited a mixture of Mk.2 and Mk.3 coaches, with electric locomotives of Classes 86, 87 and 90. Virgin Cross-Country also inherited several Class 43 High Speed Trains, and Mk.2 coaches which were hauled by Class 47 diesel locomotives and Class 86 locomotives on electrified routes.

Virgin formerly ran a service from Swindon to Birmingham via Stroud and Gloucester using Class 158 diesel multiple units, officially numbered VT0 on its timetables. This service was operated by Wales and West, the predecessor of Wessex Trains under contract from Virgin. These services were to be extended to London Paddington using HSTs refurbished to standards of the new Virgin interiors, but this plan was dropped in 2001 or 2002 and the route was transferred to Wessex Trains in conjunction with First Great Western.

A serious drive was made to improve reliability and punctuality after much press criticism in 2001, but by 2006, thanks to improved reliability of trains and completion of major infrastructure projects, performance is comparable with other intercity operators. Virgin have undertaken a number of project to increase punctuality, including radio controlled watches^[3]

The remedy to these problems has been a slow, painful and expensive one. Virgin, in 1997 placed the largest rolling stock order (£1bn) in British history with new Class 390 Pendolino tilting trains for the West Coast Main Line network. These state-of-the-art units are based on technology developed by state corporation British Rail for their prototype APT tilting train of the early 1980s; the technology was subsequently licensed to the Italian manufacturers. The Pendolino trains have a nominal top speed of 225 km/h (140 mph), but will be limited to 200 km/h (125 mph) on the West Coast Main Line; there have been proposals for 135mph running on certain sections of the WCML, namely the remodelled Trent Valley area but these are yet to be considered by Network Rail . The cross-country routes have been served by new diesel-electric four-carriage Class 220 Voyager and five-carriage Class 221 Super Voyager trains. The Super Voyager trains have tilting ability like the Pendolino and will be used for services operating on the West Coast Main Line.

This meant that by December 2004, Virgin Trains had replaced all of the rolling stock inherited from British Rail with brand-new trains. The new trains offer many features not available on the older stock but have also been criticised for cramming seats into the carriages at far higher densities, leading to sharply reduced leg-room and generally more cramped passenger conditions. The trains were intended to work at much higher frequencies than British Rail’s did, and so each train has fewer seats than the ones it replaced. With the failure of the infrastructure company to deliver track which can operate those higher frequencies, Virgin's trains now have too little capacity and are regularly overcrowded.

The West Coast Main Line itself has been the subject of a massive £10bn refurbishment programme to accept the new trains, one that has been the subject of massive controversy, since it is now running three years late, and has cost twice the original estimate. (see West Coast Main Line page for full details).

Given Richard Branson’s personal popularity with much of the British public and the high-profile success of some of his other business ventures such as the Virgin Atlantic airline, the relative failure of Virgin Trains may appear unusual (but might perhaps be considered alongside Virgin Cola and Virgin Vodka, both brands launched in a blaze of publicity, but have now largely disappeared).

In May 2003, following the poor punctuality and extreme overcrowding brought on by their new 'Operation Princess' clockface timetable launched in September 2002, Virgin Trains introduced some new set-down only or pick-up only stops into its passenger timetable. What is unusual about these restricted stops is that they are in the middle of the train journey, rather than the common practice of instituting set-down only stops at the next-to-last station or pick-up only on the second station of a train’s run. For instance, some South-North trains are pick-up only at Oxford, despite Oxford being the sixth or seventh stop and previous stops not being pick-up only. The company has stated that these are enforceable by means of fines; for example, a passenger leaving the train at a pick-up only stop is deemed not to have a valid ticket, and could be charged accordingly, although exactly how this can be enforced once a passenger has left the train is unclear. The apparent intention of the restricted stops is to stop short-distance passengers from overcrowding the long-distance trains, although they might also put some long-distance travellers off using the trains.

Additionally, some destinations, including Blackpool, Poole, Portsmouth, Liverpool Lime Street, London Paddington and Swansea, were removed from the Virgin Trains network altogether, and some services pass through important junction stations, such as Taunton, Exeter St Davids and Didcot Parkway without stopping. For the Winter 2005 timetable, Milton Keynes Central was now sparsely served by peak time West Coast services in order to deter commuters from using Virgin's services as an additional link to Euston.

The future

It has been announced [4] that the Cross Country franchise will finish in 2007 as part of a franchise reshuffle in the Midlands. The new franchise will include former Central Trains Citylink services. Branson has indicated that he wishes to rebid for the new franchise, but has openly criticised the Government's policy of charging large subsidy repayments on top of the track access charges to Network Rail. He cites the £1.3bn repayment which rival intercity operator GNER was required to agree to in return for its East Coast franchise being extended, arguing that such charges will cause train operators to cut back on quality of service.

Projected growth in passenger numbers on the West Coast routes has prompted discussions about increasing the length of Pendolino sets to 11 or (more likely) 10 vehicles. The likelihood of 10 car formations was forseen in the original WCML strategy, so minimal infrastructure improvements would be required. A decision is expected from DfT by the end of 2006.

Following the completion of the Trent Valley Line quadrupling and Rugby junction upgrades to allow 125mph running (completed by 2008), West Coast journey times are expected to fall further; Glasgow-Euston 4h 15mins, Euston-Birmingham 1hr 20mins. Virgin claim that 135mph running may be possible in places, although Network Rail remain sceptical - stating that significant signalling upgrades would be required.

Virgin have consistently expressed an interest in the East Coast franchise since privatisation. However, it failed in its bid in 2005 to gain control of the route from incumbent GNER. On 15 December 2006, the Department of Transport announced its wishes for GNER to 'surrender' the East Coast franchise, following financial and operational problems at its parent company, Sea Containers [5]. The DfT stated that GNER is welcome to re-bid for the franchise, but their problems leaves Virgin, in a strong position to become the next operator of the route. Virgin trains has now been shortlisted for East Coast franchise, with its partner Stagecoach, under the name "Intercity Railways" [6].

An open-access operator, Wrexham & Shropshire, has submitted a plan to operate services between London and North Wales, which would involve utilising a stretch of the WCML. Virgin Trains objected to this proposal, which would have seen Wrexham & Shropshire having trains call at Wolverhampton. Due to the moderation of competition protection that is part of Virgin's West Coast franchise agreement, Wrexham & Shropshire have had to submit a new proposal that will involve only limited use of Wolverhampton, with Tame Bridge Parkway station used as its main Midlands stop.

Cross Country network from December 2007

In addition to the current network the Central Citylink routes of Birmingham-Derby-Nottingham, Cardiff-Gloucester-Birmingham-Derby-Nottingham and Birmingham-Leicester-Cambridge-Stansted Airport will be added. The hourly Leicester - Birmingham local service will now be operated by Cross Country rather than the West Midlands franchise.

West Coast Main Line services between Manchester-Scotland, Birmingham-Preston-Scotland and some Manchester-Birmingham services will be transferred to the West Coast franchise. This means no through trains beyond Birmingham from west coast mainline destinations north of Crewe. However Glasgow Central will be served by at least two trains per day from the East Coast Main Line.

It was planned to run no services beyond Reading however Guildford will be served by at least one train per day and maybe to Brighton if a business case is put forward. Paignton and Dundee will be served by three trains per day whilst Weston-super-Mare, Aberdeen and Cardiff Central will be served by at least one train per day and summer Saturday and Sunday service to Newquay, as currently operated, will run.

Also there will be some core axis changes. At the moment most Newcastle originating services go to Bristol and Manchester services to Reading however from December 2007 there will be hourly Newcastle-Reading services and hourly Manchester-Bristol services. Most service patterns will remain as now for Edinburgh-North East-Birmingham-South West/South Coast services.

Virgin Trains routes

Current routes

Past routes

Rolling Stock

Current fleet

Past fleet

References

See also

• National Rail
• West Coast Main Line
• North Wales Coast Line
• Class 390 Pendolino
• Class 220 Voyager
• Class 221 Super Voyager
• Virgin Cross-Country
• Virgin West Coast
• Megatrain

• Though Jungfrau is German for ‘virgin’, the Jungfrau Railway has nothing to do with Virgin Trains.

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