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Virgin Trains East Coast

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Virgin Trains East Coast
InterCity 225 and HST at London King's Cross in May 2017
Overview
Franchise(s)
Main route(s)
Other route(s)
Fleet size
Stations called at53
Stations operated12
Parent company
Reporting markGR
PredecessorEast Coast
SuccessorLondon North Eastern Railway
Other
Websitewww.lner.co.uk
Route map
Route map

Virgin Trains East Coast (VTEC) (legal name East Coast Main Line Company Limited[1]) was a train operating company in the United Kingdom that operated the InterCity East Coast franchise on the East Coast Main Line between London, Yorkshire, the North East and Scotland. It commenced operations on 1 March 2015, taking over from East Coast as a joint venture between Stagecoach (90%) and Virgin Group (10%).

It was originally intended to run until 2023 and return £3.3 billion to the government in the form of franchise premiums, but, due to the line performing below VTEC's expectations, it was announced in May 2018 that the contract would be terminated early by the government; VTEC ceased operating on 23 June 2018, when operations passed to the government-owned operator, London North Eastern Railway.

While the operation itself was profitable, VTEC placed part of the blame for the under-performance with respect to their franchise bid on their belief that the government had failed to deliver expected upgrades or new trains, while the government claimed VTEC had simply overbid. Given it was the third instance of the East Coast franchise needing to be terminated early for financial reasons, it was announced the next permanent arrangement, to begin in 2020, would feature closer co-operation between the private sector and Network Rail, the state-owned operator of the infrastructure.

History

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Award

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In January 2014, FirstGroup, Keolis/Eurostar and Stagecoach/Virgin were announced by the Department for Transport (DfT) as the shortlisted bidders for the new InterCity East Coast franchise.[2][3] In November 2014, the eight-year franchise was awarded to the Stagecoach/Virgin joint venture and commenced operating on 1 March 2015 trading as Virgin Trains East Coast.[4][5][6][7]

Financial problems

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On 28 June 2017, Stagecoach announced passenger revenues on the East Coast line were below expectations, meaning the company had registered a loss of around £200m to date, due to the profits that were being registered being lower than the payments due to the government for the right to operate the franchise. As a result, Stagecoach were attempting to renegotiate the terms, a process that was being delayed by the intervening general election. They made a loss when trades were down 11% due to loss on the East Coast service. The RMT called for renationalisation of the franchise, although Stagecoach was confident it could make a profit within two years.[8]

In November 2017, the Transport Secretary Chris Grayling announced that the franchise would be terminated three years early in 2020, and in its place would be the East Coast Partnership (ECP), the first of a new type of franchising arrangement, a long term regional public-private partnership where the private entity takes more control over the Network Rail infrastructure, under a "unified brand".[9] The House of Commons Transport Committee described the partnership approach in 2018 as "experimental" and in need of a proper feasibility assessment.[10] Stagecoach claimed that the failure of Network Rail to implement expected infrastructure improvements, and delays to the government-controlled purchase of the fleet of Azuma trains, were partly responsible for the expected growth in passenger revenue failing to materialise. Grayling however claimed that Stagecoach had simply made a mistake in their bid calculations, while admitting that the tender process encouraged over-bidding. Critics of the early termination described it as yet another government bailout of a private company in the failed privatised railway system, although this was only based on the fact the government would lose the more than £2 billion in future franchise payments due to the government over the last four years of its contract. Analysts claimed that since both parties shared blame for the losses, an early termination was mutually desirable. Both Stagecoach and the Secretary of State anticipated all contractual payments due would be fulfilled up to the termination date, and since the Secretary had been advised there had been no malpractice or malicious intent on their part, Stagecoach and Virgin would be free to bid for future franchises, including the ECP.[11][12][13]

Demise

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In February 2018, with the situation now seen as more urgent, the date for the end of VTEC's contract was brought forwards to "a small number of months", with the Secretary considering replacing it with either a short term not for profit arrangement with VTEC, or renationalisation under an operator of last resort, until the ECP could begin in 2020.[14][15][16] On 16 May 2018 it was announced that the London North Eastern Railway, a temporary government controlled operator of last resort, would take over the operation of the line from 24 June 2018, thus ending VTEC's contract.[17][18]

Services

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Typical off-peak Monday-Friday service pattern (including other inter-city services)

Virgin Trains East Coast took over all of the services operated by East Coast. It categorised its weekday services from London King's Cross into four routes:[19]

Route Off-peak
frequency		 Calling at (off-peak) Peak-time extensions
A London King's Cross to Leeds (and West Yorkshire) 2tph 1tph: Peterborough, Doncaster, Wakefield Westgate
1tph: Stevenage, Grantham, Doncaster, Wakefield Westgate		 1tpd to Skipton via Keighley
1tpd to Bradford Forster Square via Shipley
1tpd to Harrogate via Horsforth
B London King's Cross to Edinburgh (express) 1tph York, Darlington, Newcastle, Berwick-upon-Tweed 1tpd to Inverness
1tpd to Stirling
4tpd to Aberdeen (3 from London King's Cross, 1 from Leeds)
C London King's Cross to Edinburgh (semi-fast) 1tph Peterborough, Newark North Gate, Doncaster, York, Northallerton (1tp2h), Darlington, Durham, Newcastle, Alnmouth (1tp2h)
(Northallerton and Alnmouth are usually served by alternate trains)		 1tpd to Glasgow Central
1tpd to Sunderland
D London King's Cross to Newark North Gate (and York) 1tph Stevenage, Peterborough, Grantham;
1tp2h extended to York calling at Retford and Doncaster		 1tpd to Lincoln
1tpd to Hull

Named trains

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Further information: List of named passenger trains of the United Kingdom

Virgin Trains East Coast operated a number of named passenger trains, including:

Name Origin Destination Other details
Flying Scotsman London King's Cross Edinburgh Waverley Service began 1862 in both directions; named by the LNER in 1924, today only operates in southbound direction
Highland Chieftain London King's Cross Inverness the longest VTEC route
Northern Lights London King's Cross Aberdeen

Service changes

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Virgin Trains East Coast introduced once per day services to Stirling and Sunderland via Newcastle on 14 December 2015, along with one extra service each weekday evening between Hull and Doncaster via Selby.[20] In May 2016, a number of weekday services to Newcastle were extended to Edinburgh meaning there was almost a complete half hourly service between the two cities. From December 2016, Morpeth benefited from additional stops provided by the operator to improve connections to Edinburgh and London.

Following the December 2017 timetable change, VTEC introduced 24 new Saturday services, increasing the number of Saturday services to 151, only six fewer than weekdays. A weekday service from York at 4:40 am arriving in London for 7 am was also introduced.[21]

Rolling stock

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Virgin Trains East Coast inherited the rolling stock operated by East Coast, comprising InterCity 125 High Speed Train sets made up of Class 43 power cars and Mark 3 carriages, and InterCity 225 sets made up of Class 91 electric locomotives and Mark 4 carriages and Driving Van Trailers. Most driving vehicles received a Virgin logo within the first three days of the franchise, and all train sets had received the full red and white VTEC livery by November 2015.

Attention then turned to the interiors, with toilets to be refreshed and seat covers and carpets replaced.[22] The first refurbished set entered service on 31 December 2015. All of the HST sets were refurbished by August 2016, and all of the InterCity 225 sets by January 2017.

In July 2015, an additional HST set was transferred from East Midlands Trains.[23]

Fleet at end of franchise

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 Class  Image  Type   Top speed   Number   Built  Notes
 mph   km/h 
InterCity 125 trains (HSTs)
Class 43 Diesel locomotive 125 200 32 1976–1982
Mark 3 carriage Passenger carriage 117 1975–1988
InterCity 225 trains
Class 91 Electric locomotive 140 225 31 1988–1991
Mark 4 carriage Passenger carriage 302 1989–1992
Driving Van Trailer Control car 31 1988
Hired locomotives
Class 90 Electric locomotive 110 177 3 1987–1990 A short term hire-in to cover for a shortfall in Class 91s.

Intercity Express Programme

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Class 800 in Virgin Trains East Coast livery

Although Virgin Trains East Coast had no plans of its own to introduce new rolling stock, 10 five-car and 13 nine-car Class 800 bi-mode trains and 12 five-car and 30 nine-car Class 801 EMUs were due to be introduced during VTEC's franchise term as part of the DfT-led Intercity Express Programme.[24] On 16 March 2016, VTEC officially unveiled the first of the new trains and branded them as Azuma, after the native Japanese term for "east".[25] In October 2017, it was revealed that the fleet would enter service from December 2018,[26] but the early termination of the franchise in June 2018 meant that they were not used in service under VTEC. The trains were finally introduced in May 2019 under London North Eastern Railway, retaining the Azuma branding.[24]

Depots

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Virgin Trains East Coast had four main depots:

Operation

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Punctuality

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The public performance measure (PPM) shows the percentage of trains which arrive at their terminating station on time. It combines figures for punctuality and reliability into a single performance measure. The most recent figure (in the four weeks from 13 December 2015 – 9 January 2016) for Virgin Trains East Coast's PPM was 82.0%. The moving annual average PPM was 86.9%.[27]

Passenger numbers

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East Coast passenger numbers in the previous year from 2011 to 2017.[28][29]

Profitability

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During the tender process, Virgin Trains East Coast promised to pay higher premiums to the government than its predecessor East Coast did,[30] but failed comprehensively, immediately reducing premium payments and eventually giving up its £3.3 billion franchise.

In the first full year of operation, the company repaid only £204 million of the premium, shortly before defaulting on the franchise.[12] This compares unfavorably to the £235 million paid over the previous year by the publicly operated East Coast franchise.[31]

Incident with Jeremy Corbyn

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Main article: Traingate
According to VTEC: "CCTV footage shows Mr Corbyn returning to Coach H and sitting down at 11.43am, shortly after being filmed while sitting on the floor and more than 2hrs before his final destination, Newcastle."[32]

In August 2016, a video was released of Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn in which he said he was forced to sit on the floor on a VTEC train to Newcastle because the train was "ram-packed". At the time, Corbyn said "Is it fair that I should upgrade my ticket whilst others who might not be able to afford such a luxury should have to sit on the floor? It's their money I would be spending after all.”[33] However, Virgin Trains later released edited CCTV footage which they claimed showed Corbyn walking past empty seats in Coach H, filming the video and then walking back to Coach H to sit for the rest of the journey.[34][35] Corbyn said about the incident "Yes, I did walk through the train. Yes, I did look for two empty seats together so I could sit down with my wife, to talk to her. That wasn't possible so I went to the end of the train."[36] Analysis by a media outlet supporting the re-election bid of Jeremy Corbyn in the then-Labour leadership contest of the CCTV footage later claimed to show that the unreserved seats in some of the images were occupied and that other passengers also sat in the vestibules.[37][38][39][40]

Industrial action

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Main article: 2016–2018 United Kingdom rail strikes § Virgin Trains East Coast

Due to concerns over the planned introduction of driver-only operation by VTEC, in addition to nearly 200 planned compulsory redundancies and staff pay concerns, the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers (RMT) announced that three 24-hour strikes would be held by all workers (except depot maintenance workers) at VTEC in August 2016;[41][42][43] however, following negotiations between VTEC and the RMT, these were all eventually cancelled.[44][45][46]

A further breakdown in negotiations between the RMT and VTEC resulted in the union calling for further industrial action, which took place for 24 hours on 3 October 2016.[47][48] Further strikes were subsequently called, for 48 hours on 28–29 April 2017; however, this was again cancelled before it could take place following "progress" in talks between the union and the operator.[49][50][51]

References

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  1. ^ "East Coast Main Line Company Limited". Companies House. Archived from the original on 24 June 2018.
  2. ^ "East Coast rail line shortlist revealed". BBC News. 17 January 2014. Archived from the original on 16 December 2018. Retrieved 14 December 2020.
  3. ^ "InterCity East Coast franchise shortlist announced". Railway Gazette International. 17 January 2014. Archived from the original on 20 November 2018. Retrieved 14 December 2020.
  4. ^ "Stagecoach and Virgin win East Coast mainline rail franchise". BBC News. 27 November 2014. Archived from the original on 28 November 2014. Retrieved 14 December 2020.
  5. ^ "More seats, more services and new trains for East Coast passengers". GOV.UK. 27 November 2014. Archived from the original on 5 December 2014. Retrieved 14 December 2020.
  6. ^ "£3·3bn premium wins East Coast franchise for Stagecoach and Virgin". Railway Gazette International. 27 November 2014. Archived from the original on 8 December 2014. Retrieved 14 December 2020.
  7. ^ Milner, Chris (27 November 2014). "Stagecoach/Virgin bid wins East Coast franchise". The Railway Magazine. Archived from the original on 13 December 2014. Retrieved 14 December 2020.
  8. ^ Wilson, Bill (28 June 2017). "East Coast rail line woes hit Stagecoach". BBC News. Archived from the original on 2 March 2018. Retrieved 13 February 2018.
  9. ^ Department for Transport, Connecting people: a strategic vision for rail, published 29 November 2017, accessed 4 November 2023
  10. ^ House of Commons Transport Committee, Intercity East Coast Franchise: Fifth Report of Session 2017–19, paragraph 55, published 12 September 2018, accessed 4 November 2023
  11. ^ "The inside track on East Coast mainline". BBC News. 12 February 2018. Archived from the original on 17 May 2018. Retrieved 16 May 2018.
  12. ^ a b Topham, Gwyn (29 November 2017). "East Coast rail 'bailout' could cost taxpayers hundreds of millions". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 2 December 2017. Retrieved 2 December 2017.
  13. ^ Elder, Bryce (29 November 2017). "Stagecoach soars after government intervenes on contract". Financial Times. Archived from the original on 3 December 2017. Retrieved 2 December 2017.
  14. ^ "Update on the East Coast, West Coast and East Midlands rail franchises". GOV.UK. 5 February 2018. Retrieved 14 December 2020.
  15. ^ "Stagecoach East Coast rail franchise to end early". BBC News. 6 February 2018. Retrieved 14 December 2020.
  16. ^ "Virgin Trains East Coast franchise to end within months". Railway Gazette International. 6 February 2018. Retrieved 14 December 2020.
  17. ^ Pickard, Jim; Spero, Josh (16 May 2018). "UK East Coast rail line to be renationalised". Financial Times. Archived from the original on 17 May 2018. Retrieved 16 May 2018.
  18. ^ "East Coast train line to be put into public control". BBC News. 16 May 2018. Retrieved 14 December 2020.
  19. ^ Route Map Archived 19 March 2015 at the Wayback Machine Virgin Trains East Coast
  20. ^ "Triple Swoop for Virgin Trains". Archived from the original on 22 December 2015. Retrieved 19 December 2015.
  21. ^ "Seat boost to Virgin's east coast mainline service". Insider Media Ltd. 9 October 2017. Archived from the original on 30 November 2020. Retrieved 10 October 2017.
  22. ^ "Exciting plans and improvements". Virgin Trains East Coast. Archived from the original on 5 March 2015. Retrieved 1 March 2015.
  23. ^ "Mk3s transferred to VTEC". Rail. No. 779. 22 July 2015. p. 29.
  24. ^ a b Smith, Kevin (15 May 2019). "LNER introduces first Azuma multiple unit". International Railway Journal. Retrieved 13 December 2020.
  25. ^ "Edinburgh to London train journey time to be cut". BBC News. 18 March 2016. Retrieved 13 December 2020.
  26. ^ Stephen, Paul (9 October 2017). "VTEC confirms December 2018 start date for Azumas". Rail. Retrieved 13 December 2020.
  27. ^ "Network Rail Performance figures (updated every four weeks)". Archived from the original on 8 December 2015. Retrieved 15 January 2016.
  28. ^ "Error". Archived from the original on 30 November 2020. Retrieved 27 May 2017.
  29. ^ "Error". Archived from the original on 30 November 2020. Retrieved 27 May 2017.
  30. ^ "Repainted and rebranded – Virgin Trains East Coast service leaves London". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 13 April 2016. Retrieved 13 December 2016.
  31. ^ "East coast mainline pays taxpayers £1bn sparking fresh reprivatisation fury". The Guardian. 4 August 2014. Archived from the original on 26 August 2016. Retrieved 6 November 2019.
  32. ^ "Media Room & Brand News - Virgin Trains". www.virgintrains.co.uk. Archived from the original on 23 August 2016. Retrieved 23 August 2016.
  33. ^ "Jeremy Corbyn sits on floor of overcrowded train – video". TheGuardian.com. 16 August 2016. Archived from the original on 13 December 2016. Retrieved 13 December 2016.
  34. ^ Riley-Smith, Ben (23 August 2016). "Revealed: Jeremy Corbyn had a seat during train journey he suggested was so 'ram-packed' he had to sit on floor". The Telegraph. Archived from the original on 17 May 2018. Retrieved 5 April 2018.
  35. ^ "Virgin Trains clarifies Labour Leader's claim of "ram-packed" service".
  36. ^ "Jeremy Corbyn angered by train seat row questions". BBC News. 24 August 2016. Archived from the original on 22 October 2018. Retrieved 21 June 2018.
  37. ^ "The Guardian admits its 'traingate' story about Jeremy Corbyn was mostly wrong". Business Insider. 7 October 2016. Archived from the original on 24 December 2018. Retrieved 24 December 2018 – via www.businessinsider.com.
  38. ^ "Guardian misled readers after treating 'gonzo news release' about Corbyn on train as journalism". Press Gazette. 16 October 2016. Archived from the original on 24 December 2018. Retrieved 24 December 2018 – via www.pressgazette.co.uk.
  39. ^ "New CCTV of 'traingate' published". Double Down News. 24 August 2017. Archived from the original on 18 March 2018. Retrieved 21 June 2018 – via www.BBC.co.uk.
  40. ^ "Did the mainstream media smear Jeremy Corbyn over Traingate?". www.newstatesman.com. 24 August 2017. Archived from the original on 15 September 2017. Retrieved 7 February 2018.
  41. ^ Topham, Gwyn (12 August 2016). "Virgin Trains East Coast staff to strike in row over jobs". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 26 February 2018. Retrieved 25 February 2018.
  42. ^ "Virgin East Coast strike dates revealed". BBC News. 12 August 2016. Archived from the original on 6 November 2018. Retrieved 21 June 2018.
  43. ^ "RMT CONFIRMS STRIKES ON VIRGIN EAST COAST AFTER 84% VOTE FOR". RMT. Archived from the original on 26 February 2018. Retrieved 25 February 2018.
  44. ^ "Virgin East Coast strikes suspended". BBC News. 16 August 2016. Archived from the original on 20 August 2018. Retrieved 21 June 2018.
  45. ^ "Virgin Trains East Coast workers suspend strike action". Archived from the original on 26 February 2018. Retrieved 25 February 2018.
  46. ^ "Intercity East Coast RMT Suspends All Industrial Action". RMT. Archived from the original on 26 February 2018. Retrieved 25 February 2018.
  47. ^ "Virgin East Coast staff call strike day". BBC News. 26 September 2016. Archived from the original on 6 November 2018. Retrieved 21 June 2018.
  48. ^ "RMT Confirms Strike Action on Virgin East Coast - rmt". RMT. Archived from the original on 26 February 2018. Retrieved 25 February 2018.
  49. ^ "Virgin train strike halted after talks". BBC News. 24 April 2017. Archived from the original on 24 October 2018. Retrieved 21 June 2018.
  50. ^ "Virgin Trains East Coast strike is suspended". Archived from the original on 26 February 2018. Retrieved 25 February 2018.
  51. ^ "RMT Suspends Strike Action on Virgin East Coast - rmt". RMT. Archived from the original on 26 February 2018. Retrieved 25 February 2018.
[edit]
Preceded by Operator of InterCity East Coast franchise
2015–2018 		Succeeded by
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