Virgin Group, Sir Richard Branson’s company, is returning to Britain’s railways. The Virgin Group will launch services on the mainline west coast route — the route the billionaire had been kicked off five years earlier by ministers.
Virgin Trains has submitted a bid to run 10 carriage trains between London Euston, Manchester, Liverpool, and Glasgow.
The company applied for a license to become a “new open access” operator, under rules that allow rivals to operate trains on the same lines as the main operator.
According to a request to the rail regulator, Virgin trains will run hourly from Euston to Preston via Manchester Piccadilly and Birmingham New Street. The trains will run every 2 hours to Glasgow.
Branson is planning to lower Avanti fares, and he is also looking into automatic delay repayment — which means customers will receive a refund without taking any action if the train is cancelled or delayed. The company is expected to bring some of the quirky aspects to train travel, such as “talking toilets”.
The new services will not begin before the general elections, but they won’t be affected by Labour plans for nationalising prime rail operators like Avanti, Southern, and Thameslink to create a single British Rail entity. Open access operators are still allowed to run along side the main service.
Branson became the face of rail privatisation, which began under the Conservatives during the mid-1990s but was accelerated by Labour in the 2000s. After a High Court challenge, he overturned the decision to expel Virgin Trains in 2012 from the main west coast line.
Virgin Trains, however, was disqualified by the Department of Transport from bidding for the same route in 2019, because it did not comply with pension rules.
In 2019, it was replaced by Avanti. The company has experienced widespread cancellations, delays and other problems due to driver shortages as well as poor industrial relations. Andy Burnham, the mayor of Greater Manchester and his colleagues in the north demanded repeatedly that Avanti lose the contract for operating intercity services along the west coast.
The spiraling cost of tickets has also angered passengers. For example, a standard-class return ticket departing at 6am Tuesday and returning by midday Thursday costs £369
The services have improved, however, after Avanti began offering drivers a flat fee of £600 for working during rest days. FirstGroup, Avanti’s coowner, applied to run its rival open-access services to Rochdale in an unusual move last week.
Josh Bayliss the Virgin Group Chief Executive confirmed to The Office of Rail and Road this weekend that a request had been submitted.
“We believe open access is the future,” he said. Virgin has always supported open access because it increases competition and consumer choice.
Virgin Trains has reduced journey times by a considerable amount, tripled service on key routes, and delivered an excellent customer experience, while increasing passenger numbers from 42 million to 62 million per year.
Virgin Trains is a welcome addition to the market, giving customers much needed choice and competition.
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