Virgin Trains East Coast

Common card · No. 450010

Virgin Trains East Coast (VTEC) (legal name East Coast Main Line Company Limited) was a British train operating company that operated the InterCity East Coast franchise on the East Coast Main Line between London, Yorkshire, the North East and Scotland. It commenced operations on 1 March 2015, taking over from East Coast as a joint venture between Stagecoach (90%) and Virgin Group (10%). It was originally intended to run until 2023 and return £3.3 billion to the government in the form of franchise premiums, but, due to the line performing below VTEC's expectations, it was announced in May 2018 that the contract would be terminated early by the government; VTEC ceased operating on 23 June 2018, when operations passed to the state-owned operator London North Eastern Railway. While the operation itself was profitable, VTEC placed part of the blame for the under-performance with respect to their franchise bid on their belief that the government had failed to deliver expected upgrades or new...

Read on Wikipedia · Image Train Photos, CC BY-SA 2.0