InterCity East Coast is a railway franchise for passenger trains on the East Coast Main Line in the United Kingdom from London King's Cross to Hull,

Leeds Leeds () is a city and the administrative centre of the City of Leeds district in West Yorkshire, England. It is built around the River Aire and is in the eastern foothills of the Pennines. It is also the third-largest settlement (by popula ...

, Bradford,

Harrogate Harrogate ( ) is a spa town and the administrative centre of the Borough of Harrogate in North Yorkshire, England. Historically in the West Riding of Yorkshire, the town is a tourist destination and its visitor attractions include its spa w ...

Newcastle Newcastle usually refers to: *Newcastle upon Tyne, a city and metropolitan borough in Tyne and Wear, England *Newcastle-under-Lyme, a town in Staffordshire, England *Newcastle, New South Wales, a metropolitan area in Australia, named after Newcastle ...

Edinburgh Edinburgh ( ; gd, Dùn Èideann ) is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian on the southern shore of t ...

Glasgow Glasgow ( ; sco, Glesca or ; gd, Glaschu ) is the most populous city in Scotland and the fourth-most populous city in the United Kingdom, as well as being the 27th largest city by population in Europe. In 2020, it had an estimated popul ...

, Inverness and

Aberdeen Aberdeen (; sco, Aiberdeen ; gd, Obar Dheathain ; la, Aberdonia) is a city in North East Scotland, and is the third most populous city in the country. Aberdeen is one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas (as Aberdeen City), and ...

. It was formed during the privatisation of British Rail and transferred to the private sector in April 1996. Initially operated by Great North Eastern Railway (GNER), it was later operated by National Express East Coast, East Coast and

Virgin Trains East Coast Virgin Trains East Coast (VTEC) (legal name East Coast Main Line Company Limited) 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 N ...

. In June 2018 the franchise was terminated and the trains and stations taken back into public ownership; since then, services are provided by London North Eastern Railway (LNER), a company owned by the Department for Transport.

History

Great North Eastern Railway

In April 1996,

Sea Containers Sea Containers was a Bermudan registered company which operated two main business areas: transport and container leasing. It filed for bankruptcy on 16 October 2006. In 2009 its maritime container interests were transferred to a new company SeaC ...

, operating under the GNER brand, commenced a seven-year contract to operate the franchise. In March 2000, the Shadow Strategic Rail Authority (SRA) shortlisted Sea Containers and

Virgin Rail Group Virgin Rail Group was formed by the Virgin Group to bid for rail franchises in the United Kingdom during the privatisation of British Rail in the late 1990s. United Kingdom operations Origins Virgin bid for a number of franchises, inclu ...

to bid for the next franchise. The franchise was to be for 20 years and included proposals for new trains and replacements of sections of track. In January 2002, the SRA scrapped the refranchising process and awarded a two-year extension to Sea Containers until April 2005. In October 2004, the SRA issued an Invitation to Tender for the next franchise to the four shortlisted bidders, Danish State Railways/ English Welsh & Scottish,

FirstGroup FirstGroup plc is a British multi-national transport group, based in Aberdeen, Scotland.Department for Transport (DfT) over ten years. However, due to the financial problems caused by it having overbid as well as financial difficulties encountered by the parent company, in December 2006 the government announced it was stripping the franchise from Sea Containers and would put it up for re-tender, with GNER running the franchise on fixed fee management contract in the interim.

National Express East Coast

In February 2007, the DfT announced

Arriva Arriva plc is a British multinational public transport company headquartered in Sunderland, England.FirstGroup FirstGroup plc is a British multi-national transport group, based in Aberdeen, Scotland.National Express National Express Group is a British multinational public transport company headquartered in Birmingham, England. It operates bus, coach, train and tram services in the United Kingdom, Ireland (National Express operates Eurolines in conjunction ...

and Virgin Rail Group had been shortlisted to lodge bids for the franchise. In April 2007, it was announced that GNER had a 10% stake in the Virgin Rail Group bid. In August 2007 the franchise was awarded to National Express, and GNER's services transferred to National Express East Coast (NXEC) on 9 December 2007. By 2009, NXEC was under increasing financial pressure due to rising fuel prices and the economic downturn. Instead of projected increases in revenue from the franchise, in the first half of 2009 NXEC ticket sales income decreased by 1%. In April 2009, National Express confirmed that it was still pursuing talks with the government over possible financial assistance with the franchise, either through a reduction in the premium due, or other assistance. In July 2009, National Express announced it planned to default on the franchise, having failed to renegotiate the contractual terms of operation, and would not provide any further funding. This meant NXEC would run out of cash by the end of 2009. As a result, the DfT announced it would re-nationalise the franchise.

East Coast Main Line Company

The franchise was re-nationalised on 14 November 2009 with

Directly Operated Railways Directly Operated Railways Ltd. (DOR) was a holding company set up by the Department for Transport in the United Kingdom in July 2009 to operate rail franchises should it become necessary to bring them into public ownership. From November 2015, ...

' subsidiary East Coast taking over, with the intention being that operations would return to a private franchisee by December 2013. In March 2013, the Secretary of State for Transport announced that this would be put back to February 2015.

Virgin Trains East Coast

In January 2014,

FirstGroup FirstGroup plc is a British multi-national transport group, based in Aberdeen, Scotland.Keolis Keolis is a multinational transportation company that operates public transport systems. The company manages bus, rapid transit, tram, coach networks, rental bikes, car parks, water taxi, cable car, trolleybus and funicular services. ...

Eurostar International Limited Eurostar International LimitedCompanies House extract company no 2 ...

(EIL) and Stagecoach/ Virgin were announced as the shortlisted bidders for the new franchise. In November 2014, the franchise was awarded to Stagecoach/Virgin, who trading as

(VTEC) commenced operating the franchise on 1 March 2015. In November 2017 Secretary of State for Transport

Chris Grayling Christopher Stephen Grayling (born 1 April 1962) is a British Conservative Party politician and author who served as Secretary of State for Transport from 2016 to 2019. He has served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Epsom and Ewell since 2001. ...

announced the early termination of the East Coast franchise in 2020, three years ahead of schedule, following losses on the route by the operator. Virgin Trains East Coast had been due to pay more than £2 billion in franchise premiums to the government over the last four years of its contract. Secretary Grayling claimed the losses were due to VTEC simply overestimating future growth in passenger revenue in its bid calculations, meaning franchise payments due to the government exceeded the profits being returned by running the services, while others believe the delays in state owned Network Rail delivering expected infrastructure upgrades meant the company could not operate the increased number of services needed to generate this increased revenue. Termination was brought forward in February 2018 to June 2018.

London North Eastern Railway

On 16 May 2018, Secretary of State for Transport Chris Grayling announced the franchise would be terminated on 24 June 2018 and renationalised. A partnership of

Arup Group Arup (officially Arup Group Limited) is a British multinational professional services firm headquartered in London which provides design, engineering, architecture, planning, and advisory services across every aspect of the built environment ...

, Ernst & Young, and SNC-Lavalin Rail & Transit provided assistance to the government in their preparation to take control of the franchise from VTEC and it is currently operated by DOHL, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the

Department of Transport The Department for Transport (DfT) is a department of His Majesty's Government responsible for the English transport network and a limited number of transport matters in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland that have not been devolved. The d ...

Rolling stock

At inception the franchise inherited a fleet operated a fleet of

InterCity 125 The InterCity 125 (originally Inter-City 125New trai ...

and InterCity 225 trains. These were refurbished with new interiors in the mid-2000s, the former of which were retired in December 2019, the latter were due to be retired in 2020. All to be replaced by Class 800/ 801s.Government gives green light for more state-of-the-art intercity trains
Department for Transport 18 July 2013 It was announced in February 2020 that LNER will retain a number of Class 91s and Mk 4s to enable it to meet December 2021 timetable requirements.

References

{{Rail franchises in Great Britain, state=collapsed East Coast Main Line Railway franchises in the United Kingdom