I never minded Virgin trains when they had the west coast mainline franchise, but why are they applying for a license now of all times?
Can the Tories fast track this? It smacks of throwing a spanner into Labour's plans. It's a special license to allow Virgin to run trains alongside Avanti. Very niche, very specific.
Seems to me Branson wants the publicity of being the last private operator running on a nationalised network; as if he's hoping it will leave people with a skewered perception of how "good" private operators were when compared to a national operator.
I was thinking this myself, they couldn't wait to fuck him off and get Avanti/TrenItalia in (are they still in special measures), yet all of a sudden they wany Virgin trains running again?
Will Virgin run a train to replace the ones Avanti cancel? Went to London on the 11th, train before ours got cancelled and the next was an hour later - train was only a 9 car too, so was rammed at Piccadilly, the Premium economy got changed to economy and were a free for all and there were people sitting on the floor by the time we got to Stoke.
What I would say, is if Branson can run the private trains to the standards we want, then I'd be happy for him to run the nationalised version. When they are nationalised, they need tobe ran professionally, not for shareholder profit. I'm happy with them initially making profits, for the sole purpose of the money to be ploughed back in to staff wages, more staff, improving stations,getting new rolling stock - built in the UK - then once done, profits to be reigned in.