Virgin CrossCountry

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For the present franchise holder of the Cross Country Route, see CrossCountry.

Virgin CrossCountry
A Class 220 Voyager at Bristol Temple Meads in 2005
Overview
Franchise(s)InterCity CrossCountry
6 January 1997 – 10 November 2007
Main route(s)Southern England/London Paddington and South West England/South East Wales – Midlands – Northern England and Scotland
Fleet size34 Voyager and 44 Super Voyager sets
Parent companyVirgin Group (51%)
Stagecoach (49%)
Reporting markVXC
SuccessorCrossCountry

Virgin CrossCountry[1] was a train operating company in the United Kingdom that operated the InterCity CrossCountry passenger franchise from January 1997 until November 2007. Along with the InterCity West Coast[2] franchise held by a separate legal entity, the company traded under the Virgin Trains brand.

Operations commenced on 5 January 1997 as part of the privatisation of British Rail. Originally scheduled to run for 15 years, the franchise was suspended in favour of a management contract in July 2002. The government opted to retender the CrossCountry franchise during the late 2000s and services were transferred over to Arriva-owned CrossCountry on 11 November 2007.

Virgin CrossCountry operated some of the longest direct rail services in the United Kingdom, but most avoided Greater London entirely as a result of changes in 2003. All of its services called, or terminated, at Birmingham New Street. Multiple service reorganisations, such as Project Princess and Project Omega, were implemented by the company. In order to replace its British Rail-era rolling stock, the company introduced Class 220 Voyagers and Class 221 Super Voyagers.

History[edit]

Mark 2 carriage at Banbury in 2001

Amid the privatisation of British Rail during the mid 1990s, the newly-formed Virgin Rail Group submitted multiple bids to operate several different train franchises, including Gatwick Express, InterCity CrossCountry and InterCity West Coast.[3] It was successful in winning the latter two, both scheduled to run for 15 years, leading to the creation of Virgin CrossCountry and Virgin West Coast:[4][5] During November 1996, it was announced that Virgin had been awarded the InterCity CrossCountry franchise.[6] Services were operated by a wholly owned subsidiary, CrossCountry Trains Limited.[7] The company commenced operations on 5 January 1997.

In October 1998, Virgin Group sold 49% of the shares in Virgin Rail Group to Stagecoach.[8]

Virgin sought to introduce new tilting trains upon some of its services; however, their introduction was repeatedly delayed as a consequence of poor project management by the national railway infrastructure owner of the era, Railtrack.[9] Infrastructure changes were required to make effective use of tilting trains and, while Railtrack had committed itself to performing such upgrades on the West Coast Main Line as to permit 140 mph operation by 2005, the modernisation programme soon suffered from spiralling costs,[10] as well as technical failures such as the moving block signalling apparatus sought being immature for the intended use at that time.[11] Railtrack would ultimately collapse in 2002 while its successor, Network Rail, would also be unable to fully deliver the promised upgrade, heavily impacting Virgin's operations.[12][13]

In the wake of the collapse of Railtrack and the inability of Network Rail to fully deliver on promised improvements, both the Virgin CrossCountry and Virgin West Coast franchises were suspended in favour of management contracts in July 2002.[14][15][16] While the terms of the West Coast franchise were renegotiated, an agreement could not be reached on CrossCountry, and it was thus retendered during the late 2000s. Virgin Trains were keen to retain the franchise, and submitted a bid in response along with several other interested parties.[17]

During September 2006, the Department for Transport announced the shortlist for the New CrossCountry franchise, which included Virgin Rail Group.[18] In October 2006, the DfT issued the invitation to tender (ITT) to the four shortlisted bidders: Arriva, FirstGroup, National Express and Virgin Rail Group.[19] On 10 July 2007, the Department for Transport awarded the new CrossCountry franchise to Arriva; accordingly, the services operated by Virgin CrossCountry were transferred over to the newly created operator, named CrossCountry, on 11 November 2007.[20][21]

Services[edit]

In May 1998, Virgin introduced new services from Portsmouth Harbour to Liverpool Lime Street and Blackpool North. The Summer Saturday service to Ramsgate ran for the last time in September 1999.[22] The Summer Saturday services to Weymouth ran for the last time in September 2002.[23][full citation needed]

Operation Princess[edit]

In September 2002, Virgin Trains launched Operation Princess. This involved introducing a new clockface timetable with shorter trains running more frequently. However, the new fleet suffered from a number of technical faults which, coupled with infrastructure and capacity issues, led to many problems.[24][25] Between September 2002 and January 2003, punctuality fell to 54.1%,[26] it was therefore agreed with the Strategic Rail Authority that certain services would be cut to improve reliability and robustness on the core network.[27]

When Operation Princess was launched in September 2002, Virgin CrossCountry served these destinations:

Code Route Fate
VT0 Birmingham New Street to Swindon via Cheltenham Withdrawn summer 2003[28]
VT1 Glasgow Central, Edinburgh Waverley & Blackpool North through Birmingham New Street to South West of England Blackpool North withdrawn summer 2003[28]
VT2 Aberdeen, Edinburgh Waverley & Newcastle through Manchester Piccadilly and Birmingham New Street to Poole Services west of Bournemouth withdrawn summer 2003[28]
VT3 Liverpool Lime Street and Manchester Piccadilly, Manchester Airport, through Birmingham New Street to London Paddington, Portsmouth and Brighton Portsmouth and London Paddington withdrawn summer 2003, reduced frequency to Brighton, all Liverpool Lime Street withdrawn winter 2003[28][29]
VT4 Aberdeen and Edinburgh Waverley through Birmingham New Street to Cardiff, Swansea, Paignton and Penzance Services west of Cardiff withdrawn summer 2003[28]

Project Omega[edit]

Project Omega was a project which would have seen a series of improvements following the West Coast modernisation.[30] This included Virgin CrossCountry running services from London Kings Cross to Teesside via Nottingham and York and another service from Portsmouth Harbour to Nottingham via Feltham for Heathrow. These services would have been run by the Class 220. The project also involved extending Virgin's West Coast and CrossCountry franchises by 5 years (both originally planned to end in 2012, so would have been 2017) as well as adding a fifth car to 38 Voyagers.

By the time Virgin Trains lost the CrossCountry franchise to Arriva in 2007, the network consisted of only the following routes:

Code Route
VT1 South West of England through Birmingham to the North West and Scotland
VT2 South Coast through Birmingham to the North of England and Scotland
VT3 South West of England and South East Wales through Birmingham to the North East of England and Scotland

Rolling stock[edit]

43093 Lady in Red in Virgin Cross/Country livery at Preston

Virgin CrossCountry inherited a fleet of Class 47 and Class 86 locomotives, Mark 2 Carriages, High Speed Trains and Class 158 Express Sprinter diesel multiple units from British Rail. Class 47s on hire from English Welsh & Scottish and Fragonset were also fairly common.

A franchise commitment was the replacement of these trains with new stock. In December 1998 Virgin signed a deal to lease 78 Voyager diesel–electric multiple units built by Bombardier Transportation, consisting of 34 four-carriage Class 220 Voyagers and 40 five-carriage and four four-carriage Class 221 Super Voyagers.[31] The Super Voyagers were built with tilting mechanisms to enable higher speeds on curved tracks, including on the West Coast Main Line and between Oxford and Banbury.[32][full citation needed] The four-carriage Super Voyagers were intended for use by Virgin West Coast on services from London Euston to Holyhead, although they ended up being pooled with the other Voyagers. When Virgin West Coast started using Super Voyagers on Holyhead services in September 2004, the five-carriage units were used.

The first Class 220 Voyager arrived from Belgium in January 2001 and entered service on 21 May 2001.[33] The last Class 47s, Class 86s and Mark 2 carriages were withdrawn in August 2002, while the Express Sprinters were transferred to Wessex Trains and First TransPennine Express.

After experiencing rapid growth Virgin CrossCountry decided to retain some High Speed Train sets. During December 2001, it announced plans to refurbish eight HSTs as Virgin Challengers for use on proposed services from London Paddington to Manchester Piccadilly via Cheltenham, with the option to refurbish more.[34][full citation needed] In the wake of the collapse of Operation Princess,[35] the project was cancelled with the remaining HSTs withdrawn in September 2003 on the instruction of the Strategic Rail Authority.[36]

To provide extra stock for services on summer Saturday services to Paignton and Newquay, Virgin CrossCountry hired HSTs from Virgin West Coast, Midland Mainline and Great North Eastern Railway (GNER),[37] and Mark 3B loco-hauled carriages from Virgin West Coast. In 2004, Virgin hired Class 67 locomotives from EWS and Mark 2 carriages from Riviera Trains to operate summer Saturday services to Paignton.[38]

A standby set of Mark 2 carriages was leased from Riviera Trains from September 2004.[39] This set was usually used with an EWS Class 90 locomotive between Birmingham New Street and Manchester Piccadilly, although it did run to Newcastle with a Class 57/3 in January 2007.

HSTs were hired from Midland Mainline and GNER on a number of occasions to operate services from Edinburgh Waverley to Plymouth when Voyagers were unavailable.

Original fleet[edit]

Class Image Type Built Withdrawn Notes
Class 43 Diesel locomotive 1976–1982 2003 Operated with Mark 3 carriages.
Class 47 Diesel locomotive 1962–1968 2002 Operated with Mark 2 carriages. Some of these were rebuilt as Class 57/3 locomotives.
Class 86 Electric locomotive 1965–1966 2002 Operated with Mark 2 carriages.
Class 158 Express Sprinter DMU 1989–1992 2003
Mark 2 carriage Passenger carriage 1964–1975 2002 Operated with Class 47 and 86 locomotives.
Mark 3 carriage Passenger carriage 1975–1982 2003 Operated with Class 43 locomotives.

Final fleet[edit]

Class Image Type Top speed Built Number
mph km/h
Class 220 Voyager DEMU 125 200 2000–2001 34
Class 221 Super Voyager DEMU 125 200 2001–2002 44

Planned fleet (never built)[edit]

Class Image Type Built Number Information
Class 255 Virgin Challenger DMU 2002 (planned refurbishment) 14 (planned) Planned refurbishment of the High Speed Train to be used on services between Blackpool, Manchester and Birmingham, and Paddington to Birmingham via Swindon. These plans came to naught as the Strategic Rail Authority planned to transfer most of the stock to Midland Mainline for their London-Manchester 'Rio' services.[40]

See also[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ "extract company no 3007937: CrossCountry Trains Limited". Companies House. Archived from the original on 17 January 2014.
  2. ^ "extract company no 3007940: West Coast Trains Limited". Companies House. Archived from the original on 14 April 2014.
  3. ^ "National Express wins Gatwick rail franchise". The Independent. 4 April 1996. Archived from the original on 25 December 2018.
  4. ^ "Virgin to run CrossCountry trains". The Independent. 14 November 1996. Archived from the original on 7 November 2017.
  5. ^ Harrison, Michael (31 January 1997). "Virgin pledges tilt trains for West Coast". The Independent. Archived from the original on 20 August 2017. Retrieved 4 October 2012.
  6. ^ "Virgin to run CrossCountry trains". The Independent. 14 November 1996. Archived from the original on 7 November 2017.
  7. ^ "CROSSCOUNTRY TRAINS LIMITED". Companies House. Archived from the original on 14 April 2019. Retrieved 14 April 2019.
  8. ^ Virgin passengers get better deal Archived 3 March 2013 at the Wayback Machine BBC News 7 October 1998
  9. ^ Hughes, Murray (1 February 2003). "Pendolino to attack the London - Manchester market". Railway Gazette International. Sutton: DVV Media Group. ISSN 0373-5346. Archived from the original on 28 July 2019. Retrieved 13 November 2019.
  10. ^ "Repair costs spiral to £5bn". BBC News. 15 December 1999. Archived from the original on 10 November 2013.
  11. ^ Meek, James (1 April 2004). "The main players in the £10bn rail fiasco". The Guardian.
  12. ^ Christian, Wolmar (16 July 2005). "Forget Byers: the scandal was in the original sell-off: Railtrack was heading for disaster long before the Hatfield crash". The Guardian.
  13. ^ "Supplementary memorandum by the Strategic Rail Authority". House of Commons. 22 July 2002.
  14. ^ "Virgin Rail Group Interim Agreement". House of Commons Select Committee on Transport. Archived from the original on 7 September 2017.
  15. ^ "CrossCountry could be carved up as SRA rejects Virgin bid". Rail Magazine. No. 494. 18 August 2004. p. 6.
  16. ^ "CrossCountry network could be axed, fears Virgin". The Railway Magazine. No. 1242. October 2004. p. 4.
  17. ^ "New Cross Country Franchise Specification Issued". Virgin Trains. 31 October 2006. Archived from the original on 4 September 2011.
  18. ^ "New Cross Country Franchise Specification Issued". Virgin Trains. 31 October 2006. Archived from the original on 4 September 2011.
  19. ^ "New Cross Country Franchise Invitation to Tender" (PDF). dft.gov.uk. Department for Transport. October 2006. Archived from the original (PDF) on 9 April 2010.
  20. ^ "Department for Transport announces winner of New Cross Country franchise". Department for Transport. 10 July 2007. Archived from the original on 9 May 2011. Retrieved 17 September 2012.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
  21. ^ "Arriva welcomes new CrossCountry rail franchise award". Arriva. 10 July 2007. Archived from the original on 20 May 2012. Retrieved 16 September 2012.
  22. ^ 1999 – 2000 Back over the S&C Archived 7 August 2012 at the Wayback Machine 1s76.com
  23. ^ Rail Magazine. No. 462. 28 May 2003. p. 53. {{cite magazine}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
  24. ^ Montague, Simon (19 November 2002). "Virgin's catalogue of misfortune". BBC News. Archived from the original on 30 July 2004. Retrieved 15 November 2007.
  25. ^ "Virgin forced to replace new trains with old". The Telegraph. 1 December 2002. Archived from the original on 20 September 2016.
  26. ^ Page 8 Virgin CrossCountry Fact File
  27. ^ "Informed Sources January 2003". Alycidon. Archived from the original on 21 July 2012.
  28. ^ a b c d e VT3 timetable 2003
  29. ^ VT2 timetable 2005
  30. ^ "West Coast: out of chaos has come order". Rail Magazine. No. 840. 22 November 2017. pp. 92–97.
  31. ^ From Dream to Reality Archived 16 December 2012 at the Wayback Machine The Locomotive & Carriage Institution 5 November 2002
  32. ^ Rail Magazine. No. 447. 30 October 2002. p. 11. {{cite magazine}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
  33. ^ Rail Magazine. No. 425. 26 December 2001. p. 36. {{cite magazine}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
  34. ^ Rail Magazine. No. 425. 26 December 2001. p. 10. {{cite magazine}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
  35. ^ "Select Committee on Transport Fourth Report". UK Parliament. Archived from the original on 5 September 2017. Retrieved 5 September 2017.
  36. ^ Privatisation 1993–2005 Archived 30 September 2011 at the Wayback Machine 125 Group
  37. ^ The High Speed Train Archived 30 July 2017 at the Wayback Machine Taunton Trains
  38. ^ "History". Riviera Trains. Archived from the original on 29 March 2009.
  39. ^ Rail Magazine. No. 496. 15 September 2004. p. 7. {{cite magazine}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
  40. ^ Privatisation 1993 – 2005 Archived 30 September 2011 at the Wayback Machine – 125 Group

External links[edit]

Media related to Virgin CrossCountry at Wikimedia Commons

Preceded by Operator of InterCity CrossCountry franchise
1997–2007 		Succeeded by
CrossCountry
New CrossCountry franchise


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