The Virgin fleet
presents a potted history of Virgin Trains - a modern franchise that’s always tipped a nod to the railway’s roots.
Ben Ando presents a potted history of Virgin Trains - a franchise that’s always tipped a nod to the railway’s roots.
It was a typically flamboyant Virgin affair, and it brought a taste of what privatisation would mean to a railway starved of pizzazz and promotion. Virgin’s charismatic founder Richard Branson unveiled the name Mission: impossible on the immaculate flanks of Class 90 90002, resplendent in red, and in line with the company’s branding, so familiar from high street music stores, airlines and even cola. The entrepreneur explained that if taken literally, the name Mission: impossible might be an admission of defeat, but added that in the eponymous film the heroes always prevailed in the end, and he vowed to achieve 90% punctuality within a year. The naming took place at Euston on March 9 1997, two months after Virgin Trains won the newly privatised franchise to run trains on the West Coast main line. Virgin had already taken control of the Crosscountry franchise to operate trains along some of the longest routes on the network, such as Penzance to Aberdeen. Virgin Crosscountry inherited a mixed bag of trains, including HST
sets, Class 86s and Class 47s, hauling air-conditioned Mk 2s, and even a small number of Class 158 DMUS.
INTO THE RED
all of these, except the DMUS, were progressively repainted into Virgin’s first livery - red bodysides with dark grey ends relieved by three narrow white stripes at waist height. WCML services used electric locomotives of classes 86, 87 and 90, which operated in push-pull mode with Mk 3s, including Mk 3 Driving Van trailers (Dvts), usually at the london end. the company also had a small fleet of hsts which were used for londonholyhead services where electric traction was not suitable. again, the trains were progressively repainted into Virgin colours. Painting the trains was relatively straightforward. For its West Coast services, Virgin soon discovered that delivering the promised improvements in timing and punctuality would not be as easy. the WCML links some of Britain’s biggest cities and is the busiest inter-city line in the country. It snakes from london euston to Glasgow Central via Stafford, Preston and Carlisle with a loop to Coventry, Birmingham and Wolverhampton and branches off to Manchester Piccadilly, holyhead, liverpool lime Street and edinburgh.
TIME FOR CHANGE
When Virgin took over in the late 1990s, much of its infrastructure was in desperate need of investment. there had been few enhancements since the electrification of the 1960s and ’70s. Station buildings were tired and decaying, and speeds were limited by the sharp curves that were a legacy of the line’s 19th century origins. together with infrastructure company railtrack, Virgin announced a £2.1 billion programme to upgrade the WCML with improved signalling, track alignment works and a fleet of tilting trains to enable 140mph running within four years. this was vital, as Virgin had the worst punctuality rate of any franchisee, and its prestige West Coast brand was rapidly becoming a national joke. So the company turned to Chris Green - arguably the most outstanding railwayman of his time - to turn things around. as he accepted the role, Mr Green said that Virgin had been distracted by its procurement of new trains, and had to re-focus on the core job of getting passengers to their destinations in a degree of comfort. Virgin, he said, had to stop making stupid mistakes, such as “running out of tea,” and told them to concentrate on just “getting the boring details right.” railtrack severely underestimated the cost of installing moving block signalling on the WCML to enable 140mph running. Costs spiralled
alarmingly, and it was a contributing factor to the financial collapse of Railtrack in 2001. Its successor, Network Rail, delivered a limited upgrade which enabled 125mph running to be introduced along much of the WCML. This cost less than £10bn to achieve but was 15mph slower than the initial plan - and 37mph slower than the top speed achieved by BR’S APT-P! Infrastructure issues aside, by 2004, Virgin had successfully delivered on its promise to introduce two new fleets of diesel and electric tilting and non-tilting trains.
THE NEW TRAINS
The first to be delivered was the Class 220 ‘Voyager’ four-car DMU. These were built by Bombardier in Belgium and at Wakefield, and delivered in a striking new livery of silver bodysides with a bright red roof and curved red and white ‘swoosh’ at each end; they entered service in 2001. Virgin received 34 ‘Voyagers’ and each four-car train had 200 seats. They were used primarily on Crosscountry services but, although running more frequently, they were shorter than the HSTS and locomotive-hauled Mk 2s they displaced, and their introduction led to concerns about overcrowding. They were followed in 2002 by the Class 221 ‘Super Voyagers’. Although both trains shared the same bodyshells, the ‘Super Voyagers’ have different bogies because they are designed to tilt. Virgin used the 44 sets, most in five-car configuration, on Crosscountry and West Coast Main Line services, as well as on the North Wales Coast line. They
featured the same livery as the ‘Voyagers’. However, a greater statement by Virgin to revolutionise the West Coast Main Line appeared the following year in the form of the Alstom Class 390 ‘Pendolino’. Like the ‘Voyagers’, the ‘Pendolinos’ carried through the new-look Virgin livery, but the contours of the new train were very different to the ‘Voyagers’. The ‘Pendolino’ was a tilting train, designed to run at 140mph. The sleek and graceful nose, which hid its emergency coupler, was the brainchild of Paul Priestman, of design consultants Priestman Goode, who’d previously worked with Richard Branson on his Virgin Atlantic airline. He said that inspiration for the new train had come from the
classic lines of the Jaguar E-type. The technology behind the new train originated with Fiat Ferroviaria - hence its Italian-esque name - and was quite different to that used on BR’S tilting APT. BR’S train ‘decided’ when it needed to tilt, whereas lineside sensors told the ‘Pendolino’ when to tilt.
PREMIER SERVICE
The launch was a typically Virgin affair. Who else other than Virgin could get the Prime Minister - in this case Tony Blair to unveil a new train? 390001 was named Virgin Pioneer, and the other ‘Pendolinos’ all carry names too - many a variant on the ‘Virgin…’ theme, though others carry the names of prominent cities on the west coast route. The Class 390s entered service in January 2003 and within 18 months enabled the last of the Class 90s and Mk 3s to be withdrawn. 390053, the last to be delivered is named Mission
Accomplished.
The new trains, coupled with the completion by Network Rail of the upgrade work, had a significant impact on journey times and punctuality. In 2002, 68.7% of Virgin services were on time; by 2007 that figure had gone up to 86%. Virgin’s tenth anniversary year was not a good one. On February 23, ‘Pendolino’ 390033 City of Glasgow derailed on defective points at Grayrigg in Cumbria with the 1730 London-glasgow. The train was carrying 109 people and travelling at 95mph; all nine vehicles
derailed and all bar one rolled down an embankment. One passenger - an elderly woman - was killed. The cause was a faulty set of points which should have been inspected a few days earlier, but the inspection hadn’t taken place. Then, during the summer, Virgin lost the Crosscountry franchise to Arriva, which rebranded the service to Crosscountry and took over the ‘Voyager’ and HST fleets, along with some of the ‘Super Voyagers’. Despite these setbacks, passenger figures continued to rise and, in 2010, four new 11-car trains were delivered from Italy and 31 of the existing nine-car trains were lengthened to 11-car units.
FRANCHISE FAUX PAS
It was a surprise, therefore, that the Department of Transport awarded
Firstgroup the WCML franchise in January 2012. However, the franchise process was found to be seriously flawed and Virgin was awarded an extension to the franchise, taking it to 2014. The West Coast franchise has been extended several times since, and Virgin will run the West Coast Main Line until April 2019. Virgin Trains East Coast - a company jointly owned by Virgin and Stage- coach - had been selected to operate the East Coast Main Line from King’s Cross to the North East and Scotland on March 1 2015. The core route connects London with York, Newcastle-upon-tyne, Edinburgh, Aberdeen and Inverness and there are branches to Leeds, Hull, Lincoln and Sunderland. Virgin has inherited a mixed fleet of HSTS and former Intercity 225 sets,
comprising Class 91 electrics and Mk 4 coaches and DVTS. The fleet was quickly refurbished inside and externally rebranded into another version of the Virgin livery. This comprises a pale grey base colour with curved red swooshes relieved by white at the ends of each coach and the driving vehicles. On the First Class vehicles, three narrow purple bands just below the windows indicate their status. From December 2018, the current fleet is scheduled to be replaced by Hitachi Class 800 bi-mode and Class 802 electric multiple units. These will operate in five-car and nine-car formations and Virgin has named the new trains ‘Azuma’, meaning ‘east’, in recognition of their Japanese origins. Sir Richard Branson said the trains would “transform” services on the East Coast Main Line. The East Coast franchise lasts until 2023, so regardless of what happens on the WCML, Virgin’s distinctive brand will be associated with Britain’s railways for a good while yet.