Virgin Trains

Virgin Trains is jointly owned by Virgin Management (51%) and Stagecoach Group (49%). The two shareholders manage Virgin Trains through a joint Board known as Virgin Rail Group.

Virgin Trains comprises two franchises taken over in January 1997 (CrossCountry) and March 1997 (West Coast). The length of the franchises was initially for a period of fifteen years but subsequent developments mean that early renegotiations will possibly take place.

Both franchises are managed separately for the day to day activities of Customer Service and Operations with a Managing Director and ‘top team’ dedicated to each company.

Upon being awarded the franchises there was a commitment given to replace the entire existing train fleet – a mixture of diesel and electric trains ranging up to thirty years old – with brand new state of the art high speed trains using the very latest technology. This process started in 2001 when the first of the ‘Voyager’ diesel trains entered service on our CrossCountry routes and is now almost complete as the last of a fleet of 53 tilting ‘Pendolino’ trains are accepted into traffic on our West Coast routes to and from London.

The Virgin Group is renowned for the highest levels of customer service along with a knack for ‘doing things differently’ - and having fun in the process. This ethos has been encouraged in the development of Virgin Trains and this has given us a unique opportunity to bring new standards of service to a very traditional industry.

Virgin Trains as a whole employs around 4,800 people – most of whom are in front line customer service roles. Several hundred more are employed by our supplier organisations who maintain and service our train fleets.

• www.virgin.com/trains