Virgin trains franchise announcement...

I know they've deferred this more than once now, and I believe they said the next announcement was in August sometime, anyone have any ideas?

I heard speculation that Virgin was also after the east coast line after the previous franchise undercut them and couldn't run it at that price...

Hope they do, the " heading down south" experience is much better on Vigin than crappy east coast trains...

The announcement will be in the next few weeks.

Virgin have a good a chance as any at winning, and in fact have proved to be a steady pair of hands compared to East Coast franchise - yet it's worth mentioning that Virgin have extracted hundreds of millions of pounds from the government on what was originally a premium route.

The East Coast franchisees (GNER and National Express) both overbid and won the East Coast franchise. National Express actually bid more than GNER did when the wheels first fell off! East Coast is now government run (at arms length) but has a really good product. And the carriages don't have that eau-de-toilet smell.

Sat on east coast Leeds to London right now , no air con in 3 carriages - stifling hot bordering on dangerous , people sat on floor . Journey up was as bad . Please let Virgin win and run it like it should be run!

Sat on east coast Leeds to London right now , no air con in 3 carriages - stifling hot bordering on dangerous , people sat on floor . Journey up was as bad . Please let Virgin win and run it like it should be run!

Virgin would use the same trains

Yes but hopefully , they will fix the air on and maybe add a couple of carriages

Might get the Pendolino's in the future though. More likely after the "secret" testing they did.

Might get the Pendolino's in the future though. More likely after the "secret" testing they did.

Yes but hopefully , they will fix the air on and maybe add a couple of carriages

11 carriage Pendolinos are being rolled out on the West Coast route at the moment. They've got 2 extra Standard coaches over the 9 coach fleet.