Virgin Trains East Coast
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Virgin Trains East Coast (VTEC) (legal name East Coast Main Line Company Limited) was a
train operating company A train operating company (TOC) is a business operating Passenger Trains, passenger trains on the Rail transport in Great Britain, railway system of Great Britain under the collective National Rail brand. TOCs have existed since the Privatisation ...
in the United Kingdom that operated the
InterCity East Coast 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, Bradford, Harrogate, Newcastle, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Inverness and Aberdeen. It was fo ...
franchise on the
East Coast Main Line The East Coast Main Line (ECML) is a electrified railway between London and Edinburgh via Peterborough, Doncaster, York, Darlington, Durham and Newcastle. The line is a key transport artery on the eastern side of Great Britain running broa ...
between
London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
,
Yorkshire Yorkshire ( ; abbreviated Yorks), formally known as the County of York, is a Historic counties of England, historic county in northern England and by far the largest in the United Kingdom. Because of its large area in comparison with other Eng ...
, the North East and
Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...
. It commenced operations on 1 March 2015, taking over from
East Coast East Coast may refer to: Entertainment * East Coast hip hop, a subgenre of hip hop * East Coast (ASAP Ferg song), "East Coast" (ASAP Ferg song), 2017 * East Coast (Saves the Day song), "East Coast" (Saves the Day song), 2004 * East Coast FM, a ra ...
as a
joint venture A joint venture (JV) is a business entity created by two or more parties, generally characterized by shared ownership, shared returns and risks, and shared governance. Companies typically pursue joint ventures for one of four reasons: to acces ...
between
Stagecoach A stagecoach is a four-wheeled public transport coach used to carry paying passengers and light packages on journeys long enough to need a change of horses. It is strongly sprung and generally drawn by four horses although some versions are draw ...
(90%) and
Virgin Group Virgin Group Ltd. is a British multinational venture capital conglomerate founded by Richard Branson and Nik Powell in February 1970. Virgin Group's date of incorporation is listed as 1989 by the Companies House, who class it as a holding c ...
(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 London North Eastern Railway (LNER) is a British train operating company. It is owned by the DfT OLR Holdings for the Department for Transport (DfT). The company's name echoes that of the London and North Eastern Railway, one of the Big Four ...
. 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 Network Rail Limited is the owner (via its subsidiary Network Rail Infrastructure Limited, which was known as Railtrack plc before 2002) and infrastructure manager of most of the railway network in Great Britain. Network Rail is an "arm's leng ...
, the state-owned operator of the infrastructure.


History


Award

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. Based ...
/
Eurostar Eurostar is an international high-speed rail service connecting the United Kingdom with France, Belgium and the Netherlands. Most Eurostar trains travel through the Channel Tunnel between the United Kingdom and France, owned and operated sep ...
and
Stagecoach A stagecoach is a four-wheeled public transport coach used to carry paying passengers and light packages on journeys long enough to need a change of horses. It is strongly sprung and generally drawn by four horses although some versions are draw ...
/
Virgin Virginity is the state of a person who has never engaged in sexual intercourse. The term ''virgin'' originally only referred to sexually inexperienced women, but has evolved to encompass a range of definitions, as found in traditional, modern ...
were announced by the
Department for 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 ...
(DfT) as the shortlisted bidders for the new
InterCity East Coast 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, Bradford, Harrogate, Newcastle, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Inverness and Aberdeen. It was fo ...
franchise. In November 2014, the eight-year franchise was awarded to the Stagecoach/Virgin
joint venture A joint venture (JV) is a business entity created by two or more parties, generally characterized by shared ownership, shared returns and risks, and shared governance. Companies typically pursue joint ventures for one of four reasons: to acces ...
and commenced operating on 1 March 2015 trading as Virgin Trains East Coast.


Financial problems

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. In November 2017, the
Transport Secretary The Secretary of State for Transport, also referred to as the transport secretary, is a secretary of state in the Government of the United Kingdom, with overall responsibility for the policies of the Department for Transport. The incumbent i ...
Chris Grayling Christopher Stephen Grayling (born 1 April 1962) is a British Conservative Party (UK), Conservative Party politician and author who served as Secretary of State for Transport from 2016 to 2019. He has served as Member of Parliament (United King ...
announced that the franchise would be terminated three years early in 2020, and in its place would be the East Coast Partnership (ECP), 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. 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.


Demise

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. On 16 May 2018 it was announced that the
London North Eastern Railway London North Eastern Railway (LNER) is a British train operating company. It is owned by the DfT OLR Holdings for the Department for Transport (DfT). The company's name echoes that of the London and North Eastern Railway, one of the Big Four ...
, 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.


Services

Virgin Trains East Coast took over all of the services operated by East Coast. It categorised its weekday services from into four routes:Route Map
Virgin Trains East Coast


Named trains

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


Service changes

Virgin Trains East Coast introduced once per day services to
Stirling Stirling (; sco, Stirlin; gd, Sruighlea ) is a city in central Scotland, northeast of Glasgow and north-west of Edinburgh. The market town, surrounded by rich farmland, grew up connecting the royal citadel, the medieval old town with its me ...
and via on 14 December 2015, along with one extra service each weekday evening between Hull and Doncaster via Selby. 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, 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 4:40am arriving in London for 7am was also introduced.


Rolling stock

Virgin Trains East Coast inherited the rolling stock operated by
East Coast East Coast may refer to: Entertainment * East Coast hip hop, a subgenre of hip hop * East Coast (ASAP Ferg song), "East Coast" (ASAP Ferg song), 2017 * East Coast (Saves the Day song), "East Coast" (Saves the Day song), 2004 * East Coast FM, a ra ...
, comprising
InterCity 125 The InterCity 125 (originally Inter-City 125New trai ...
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 Trailer A Driving Van Trailer (DVT) is a Great Britain, British purpose-built control car railway vehicle that allows the driver to operate with a locomotive in Push-pull train, push-pull formation from the opposite end of a train. A key benefit of ...
s. 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. 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 East Midlands Trains (EMT) was a British train operating company owned by the transport group Stagecoach, which operated the East Midlands franchise between November 2007 and August 2019. Following the Department for Transport (DfT) award ...
. In September 2016, VTEC hired three electric locomotives from
DB Cargo DB Cargo (previously known as Railion and DB Schenker Rail) is an international transport and logistics company. It is responsible for all of the rail freight transport activities of the German railway company Deutsche Bahn (the DB Group) both ...
for use on services to Newark, York and Leeds.


Fleet at end of franchise


Intercity Express Programme

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
EMU The emu () (''Dromaius novaehollandiae'') is the second-tallest living bird after its ratite relative the ostrich. It is endemic to Australia where it is the largest native bird and the only extant member of the genus ''Dromaius''. The emu' ...
s were due to be introduced during VTEC's franchise term as part of the DfT-led
Intercity Express Programme The Intercity Express Programme (IEP) is an initiative of the Department for Transport (DfT) in the United Kingdom to procure new trains to replace the InterCity 125 and InterCity 225 fleets on the East Coast Main Line and Great Western Main Li ...
. 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". In October 2017, it was revealed that the fleet would enter service from December 2018, 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.


Depots

Virgin Trains East Coast had four main depots: *
Bounds Green TMD Bounds Green TMD (also known as Bounds Green Train Maintenance Centre) is a traction maintenance depot situated in Bounds Green, North London. The depot is to the immediate north of Alexandra Palace railway station. It is presently operated by ...
, London *
Neville Hill TMD Neville Hill is a railway train maintenance depot in Osmondthorpe, Leeds, England on the Leeds to Selby Line. The depot is situated to the east of Leeds railway station on the north side of the line. The TOPS depot code is NL. History In ...
, Leeds *
Heaton TMD Heaton TMD is a railway traction maintenance depot situated in the Heaton area of Newcastle upon Tyne, England, it is located next to the East Coast Main Line, around east of Newcastle Central station. Heaton was a sub-shed of Gateshead bet ...
, Newcastle – managed by
Arriva Rail North Arriva Rail North, branded as Northern by Arriva (legal name Arriva Rail North Limited) was a train operating company in Northern England which began operating the Northern franchise on 1 April 2016 and inherited units from the previous operato ...
*
Craigentinny TMD Craigentinny Traction Maintenance Depot (also known as Craigentinny Train Maintenance Centre) is a railway depot in the Craigentinny area of Edinburgh, Scotland. The depot is operated by Hitachi Rail with a depot code of EC. The depot opened in ...
, Edinburgh – for repaints and heavy duty maintenance


Operation


Punctuality

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%.


Passenger numbers


Profitability

During the tender process, Virgin Trains East Coast promised to pay higher premiums to the government than its predecessor East Coast did, 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 £204million of the premium, shortly before defaulting on the franchise. This compares unfavorably to the £235million paid over the previous year by the publicly operated East Coast franchise.


Incident with Jeremy Corbyn

In August 2016, a video was released of Labour Party leader
Jeremy Corbyn Jeremy Bernard Corbyn (; born 26 May 1949) is a British politician who served as Leader of the Opposition and Leader of the Labour Party from 2015 to 2020. On the political left of the Labour Party, Corbyn describes himself as a socialist ...
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.” 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. 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." 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.


Industrial action

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 The National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers (commonly known as the RMT) is a British trade union covering the transport sector. Its current President is Alex Gordon and its current General Secretary is Mick Lynch. The RMT is on ...
(RMT) announced that three 24-hour strikes would be held by all workers (except depot maintenance workers) at VTEC in August 2016; however, following negotiations between VTEC and the RMT, these were all eventually cancelled. 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. 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.


References


External links

* * {{Virgin Group Defunct train operating companies East Coast Main Line Railway companies established in 2015 Railway companies disestablished in 2018 Rail transport in England Rail transport in Scotland Stagecoach Group rail services Virgin Trains 2015 establishments in the United Kingdom 2018 disestablishments in the United Kingdom British companies disestablished in 2018 British companies established in 2015