VIRGIN TRAINS EAST COAST COMMENCES OPERATIONS
Published at 11:47 on Sunday 1st March 2015
Tags: Virgin Trains, VTEC, Virgin Trains East Coast, ECML, Franchise, DfT
The first fully liveried Mk4 set arrives at London Kings Cross from Bounds Green Depot on 2nd March. Richard Tuplin
A new chapter in the history of the East Coast Main Line commenced in the early hours of 1st March, as the route returned to private hands.
East Coast, the public name of Directly Operator Railways - itself a DfT controlled company, has been in charge of ECML Intercity workings since November 2009, when National Express 'handed back the keys', but as of today, the route has been handed over to the new operator, Virgin Trains East Coast (VTEC).
There has been continued disagreement from many quarters over the future of the route, and to many it seemed inevitable, that the franchise award would be made before the next general election.
The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) announced in early February that the franchise award could raise competition issues, but the CMA confirmed on 20th February that Stagecoach, the majority shareholder in VTEC, had offered a number of undertakings to resolve the issues, and the CMA subsequently dedicded that there were "reasonable grounds for believing that the undertakings offered by Stagecoach, or a modified version of them, might be accepted" instead of a more detailed investigation. A decision is awaited before the end of April.
