Stations called at 53 CEO David Horne (1 Mar 2015–) Founded 2015 | National Rail abbreviation GR Stations operated 12 | |
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Main route(s) Other route(s) London - InvernessLondon - GlasgowLondon - SunderlandLondon - SkiptonLondon - BradfordLondon - HarrogateLondon - HullLondon - Lincoln Website www.virgintrainseastcoast.com Profiles | ||
Virgin trains east coast first class london to newcastle
Virgin Trains East Coast is a train operating company in the United Kingdom that operates 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. It is a joint venture between Stagecoach (90%) and Virgin Group (10%).
Contents
- Virgin trains east coast first class london to newcastle
- History
- Services
- New services
- Rolling stock
- Future
- Depots
- Punctuality
- Profitability
- Incident with Jeremy Corbyn
- References
History
In January 2014, FirstGroup, Keolis/Eurostar and Stagecoach/Virgin were announced as the shortlisted bidders for the new InterCity East Coast franchise. In November 2014, the eight-year franchise was awarded to the Stagecoach/Virgin joint venture company Inter City Railways Limited, and commenced operating on 1 March 2015 trading as Virgin Trains East Coast.
Services
Virgin Trains East Coast took over all of the services operated by East Coast. It categorises its weekday services from London King's Cross into four routes:
New services
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. In May 2016, a number of weekday services to Newcastle were extended to Edinburgh meaning there is almost a complete half hourly service between the two cities. Since December 2016, Morpeth has benefited from additional stops provided by the operator to improve connections to Edinburgh and London. VTEC are proposing to extend services that terminate at Newark and York to Lincoln and Harrogate respectively. In May 2019, it is proposed that a half-hourly service to Edinburgh be introduced with a fleet of six to eight 9-car InterCity 225 sets operating limited stops services. In May 2020, it is proposed to extend services to Huddersfield and Middlesbrough.
Rolling stock
Virgin Trains East Coast inherited a fleet of InterCity 125 and InterCity 225s from East Coast. Most driving vehicles received a Virgin logo within the first three days of the franchise, and all train sets received a full Virgin Trains East Coast 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, and by August 2016 all of the HST sets had been refurbished followed by the 225's completed refurbished fleet in January 2017.
In July 2015, an additional InterCity 125 set was transferred from East Midlands Trains.
In September 2016, Virgin Trains East Coast hired three Class 90s from DB Cargo for use on services to Newark, York and Leeds.
Future
All of the current fleet are scheduled to be replaced by Class 800/Class 801 high-speed trains from December 2018. These will operate in 9-carriage and 5-carriage sets. In March 2016, VTEC announced that its IEP trains would carry the brand name Azuma, the Japanese word for "East".
If VTEC's application to operate extra limited stops services to Edinburgh is successful, it is proposing to operate these by retaining six to eight InterCity 225 sets.
Depots
Virgin Trains East Coast has four main depots:
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%, up from 81.1% in the same period a year ago. The moving annual average PPM was 86.9%.
Profitability
Virgin Trains East Coast is forecast to pay higher premiums to the government than its predecessor East Coast did: £3.3 billion over eight years, compared with East Coast’s £1 billion over five years.
Incident with Jeremy Corbyn
In August 2016, a video was released of Labour 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.” However, Virgin Trains later released CCTV footage which they said 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."