West Coast success

Christian Wolmar seems to have a particularly effective pair of rose-tinted glasses when he looks back at BR days. In his column in

RAIL 915, he berates Virgin West Coast “despite the impressive increase in passenger numbers”.

As a regular user of the West Coast Main Line between Wilmslow and Euston, before and especially after privatisation, I can tell him why that “impressive increase” came about.

I regularly attended meetings in London, but BR’s service was so unreliable that I and my colleagues would often use the BA Shuttle from Manchester to Heathrow instead. That offered a reliable and frequent service throughout the day, and a flexible business class ticket cost about the same as the anytime First Class fare on BR.

Then Virgin took over the WCML. At first, not much changed except the staff became more customer-focused. Then came the Pendolinos, the WCML upgrades, and three reliable and fast services each way every hour between Manchester and London.

So successful was the Virgin offering, far superior to that of BR, that business travel between the two cities shifted almost entirely from air to rail. Furthermore, First Class in a Virgin Pendolino was comfortable, with a good at-seat inclusive catering service. And the ticket prices are still equivalent to flexible business class on the now infrequent air service, and there are some amazing bargains if you can book in advance.

That, Christian, is the reason for the vast increase in WCML patronage under Virgin.

Vince Chadwick, Cheshire