Was losing Stagecoach/Virgin bad for the railway?

[Runningaround]

Whilst SP is a good idea what has been very negative is the reduction in full first class. That has been very poorly managed. And the food is hit and miss HOWEVER we must remember that the Managing Director of Avanti West Coast is the same MD as the last MD of Virgin Trains.
He should know what will and will not be good so I hold him personally responsible.

Strange that what Italians are famous for they cannot get right here. Avanti aren't to bad at running trains in Italy. Some of us were fooled into thinking both would be far better here.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Whilst SP is a good idea what has been very negative is the reduction in full first class. That has been very poorly managed. And the food is hit and miss HOWEVER we must remember that the Managing Director of Avanti West Coast is the same MD as the last MD of Virgin Trains.
He should know what will and will not be good so I hold him personally responsible.

You couldn't (pre-refurb) do SP without reducing the amount of 1st, but I do think they have made a very poor effort in terms of differentiating it so it would still feel like it carried value.

 

[TT-ONR-NRN]

Stagecoach were competent and realistic, and the Virgin-Stagecoach WCML operation was pretty decent.

Avanti West Coast is utter, utter dross. Just poorly-run in just about every way, coupled with a laughably amateur brand.

So yes, I miss Virgin. I wouldn't if Avanti West Coast was any good, but it's not. It's FirstGroup through and through - some decent ideas but terrible implementation.

Agreed with all of this.

 

[Horizon22]

I think there's something to be said now for SWT being a rather "boring operator" (somewhat like Southeastern); yes their NRPS scores weren't the best (but nor was any L&SE TOC), and yes they had a lot of commuters bemoaning delays and overcrowding, but ultimately for the most part, they did what they needed to with a sort of ruthless efficiency which wasn't particularly showy but got the job done. SWR really struggled (and this was before Covid) with service reliability, which wasn't helped by uprooting pretty much all their Control from Waterloo to Basingstoke, and dropping the ball on some of the basics. Also Covid really hasn't helped, nor have their belegaured stock replacement plans. How much of these issues have been foisted upon them by the DfT is of course up for debate. "Boring operators" might be more of what the general public wants these days in terms of reliability, punctuality and comfort!

Franchise changes never seem to go smoothly here, and there always seems to be 18-24 months of decline whilst the new operator gets to grip with things the old operator was (or wasn't) doing. Often this involved stock being run down to the bare bones.

 

[seagull]

One thing I've noticed is that since Virgin changed to Avanti, punctuality appears to be often prioritised over cleanliness on Euston departures. Now personally I think that's probably better: the Virgin insistence on a 10-15 minute clean of every train on arrival there, even if it meant leaving late, was a mixed blessing, yes there was a clean train but a late start usually resulted in more delays accruing en-route.
Where now, a late inbound often has its departure announced and boarding commenced within a minute or two of its arrival.

 

[[.n]]

SWR took over in 2017 so had 2 and a 1/2 years of normal operation pre covid. In that time the service declined. I would’ve welcomed stagecoach back after 2 months of SWR.

Absolutely - I feel I mentioned this at the time - but of my first 100 journeys on the new SWR not one single one ran on time (to my intended destinations) - and bear in mind I travelled every day on several of their services. [I gave up counting once I reached 100]

 

[Sniffingmoose]

Maybe its best to let the public answer the question. If you look on Trustpilot, Avanti seem to have some of the worst reviews out of all the TOCs. Some of the reviews are shocking. You see repeatedly in the reviews "Bring back Virgin". But maybe more people write reviews when they have had a bad experience.

 

[O L Leigh]

Maybe its best to let the public answer the question. If you look on Trustpilot, Avanti seem to have some of the worst reviews out of all the TOCs. Some of the reviews are shocking. You see repeatedly in the reviews "Bring back Virgin". But maybe more people write reviews when they have had a bad experience.

My own view chimes with a few others already stated, which is that, through clever PR and Branston's (ahem) "celebrity", folk generally associated the Virgin brand with trustworthiness. In a lot of respects, knowing who the guy at the top of the company is and having him being friendly and approachable and using him as their PR "big gun" was seen as breath of fresh air to the public used to dealing with faceless conglomerates. In some ways he was seen as "one of us" and "someone we can do business with".

However, I have never really rated his rail operations. The Pendolino is hateful piece of rolling stock that never fails to make me angry whenever I have the displeasure of riding on one, and the service is far from good. Twice I have travelled first class from London to Glasgow and on both occasions I felt I wasn't treated as a customer, nor yet as a passenger. I was, quite simply, a stain on the seat. The catering was woeful (I once had a hot meal and commented to my travelling companion that the starter was good and wondered what the main course would be like, before realising a few minutes later that this tiny piece of overcooked salmon wrapped in a sliver of pastry and accompanied by two of the smallest potatoes I have ever seen was the main course), the "complimentary" wine was like paint stripper and the staff could barely raise a smile even in the face of a charm offensive. That said, the trains arrived on time, which is frankly what I really cared about, and in that respect they performed no better or worse than any other TOC.

I don't buy the Virgin brand bullsh*t in any way, shape or form. If folk have had good experiences with them then that's great, but I really do not see quite how they seem to deserve the fawning hero-worship.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I don't buy the Virgin brand bullsh*t in any way, shape or form. If folk have had good experiences with them then that's great, but I really do not see quite how they seem to deserve the fawning hero-worship.

I don't worship them, and VT wasn't perfect. Avanti, however, is utterly, utterly dire.

 

[O L Leigh]

I don't worship them, and VT wasn't perfect. Avanti, however, is utterly, utterly dire.

I haven't said that you do. But many folk certainly do seem to.

As for comparisons to Avanti, I have not yet had any opportunity to compare. But given that my main metric is that the train runs to time, I would say that they are about par. Likewise, the trains themselves are still the same and offer the same standards of accommodation.

 

[CW2]

I take a slightly different view on the Virgin experience on the WCML, but then I'm heavily biased, so treat with caution!
Virgin did a deal with Railtrack (which the naive fools then running Railtrack signed up to of their own free will), promising Virgin total priority on the WCML fast lines and a total route upgrade, neither of which were they capable of delivering. Virgin's part of the deal was to promise to procure new trains (Pendolinos and Voyagers) and grow the market such that everybody involved could just lie back and watch the money rolling in.
In my view, Virgin were very competent at negotiations, and presentation / PR, and rather less good at actual delivery.
Hard work by the DfT (with the late Stuart Baker of map-making fame front and centre), and Network Rail (as successors to the disgraced Railtrack) eventually delivered the West Coast Route Modernisation, which involved a significant amount of renegotiation as to what infrastructure could actually be delivered, in what timescales, and delivering what timetables.
The eventual output was a decent timetable which operated well, but which since has proved unaffordable to maintain - hence the crumbling edge of quality we now experience. I suspect that would have been the case whoever won the franchise, because of Treasury-driven cost cutting.

 

[Tetchytyke]

The simple truth is that, for all the publicity campaigns and the corporate buzzword bingo, which large conglomerate operates which TOC doesn't actually matter or make any discernible difference.

Take EMR. All the same complaints about punctuality and overcrowding on the regional services applied under Central Trains, thry applied under Stagecoach, and they still apply now under Abellio. Nothing has changed in 25 years; all the issues that applied to Nottingham-Manchester, Derby-Crewe and Nottingham-Skegness under Central Trains still apply now.

So to answer the OP's question: no, it would make bugger all difference. That's not to criticise Stagecoach, it's just to say the owning franchisee has next to no influence on anything much.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

The eventual output was a decent timetable which operated well, but which since has proved unaffordable to maintain - hence the crumbling edge of quality we now experience. I suspect that would have been the case whoever won the franchise, because of Treasury-driven cost cutting.

I think the VHS timetable at the end of WCRM (2008), and the Pendolino fleet expansion (2012) were the high points for VWC.
But I think the DfT was hostile to spending any further money on the WCML, so Virgin had to mark time while others got much needed investment (eg Northern, TPE).
The Norton Bridge scheme was the only significant spend since 2012, which did improve performance.
HS2 and East-West Rail have also had an impact on the never-ending engineering work on the route at holiday times.
The route seems to shut down as a matter of course several times a year, whether the operator is Virgin or Avanti - unlike other main lines.

 

[dosxuk]

Absolutely, especially back then.

You might not have found them glamorous but the sort of people who are active on this forum aren’t really their target audience.

I'd say the same thing about all their products though - my opinion isn't restricted to their rail operation. The Cola was horrible, tasted like panda pop cola! The megastore was a poor version of HMV, reliant on heavily discounting certain lines to get any customers. Virgin Media as an ISP are woeful, desire their cheery adverts. And Virgin Atlantic feels like what I expect a lottery winning Derek Trotter to come up with - entirely style (and publicity stunt) over substance. They want to be ranked amongst the full service airlines, yet don't offer a first class product. I'll completely ignore Virgin Australia, as they seem to have based that on Ryanair.

Then you throw in the publicity companies, like his ballooning one and Galactic, and it all just starts sounding like a mid life crisis with a big bank account. Glamorous is simply not a word I can identify with any part of the group or brand.

But then they have a good marketing team, they turn what could be sleazy and overbearing into cheery and fun-natured. Branson could be an irritating rich boy like Musk and Bezos, but he's always managed to just about stay on the right side of public opinion, and as someone else noted - stay as a visible head of the brand who the public can identify.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

Virgin Media (now merged with O2) and Virgin Australia (now owned by Bain Capital) are not involved with Virgin Group management - they just license the brand name.
Even Virgin Atlantic is 49% owned by Delta Airlines.
Virgin Trains USA is in dispute with the operating company in Florida (Brightline) about Virgin branding.

 

[MattRat]

The cola is no more !

I don't miss some of the Virgin gimmicks like the talking toilets...

They were both great memes/jokes. Shame they disappeared.

Whatever the railway considerations might be, anything that stops Richard Branson from taking over the whole world is a good thing.

Reminds me of the hate towards the idea of Musk buying Twitter. Any other billionaire is fine, lol, just not so and so billionaire....

 

[riceuten]

Reminds me of the hate towards the idea of Musk buying Twitter. Any other billionaire is fine, lol, just not so and so billionaire..

If said millionaire had a reputation for smashing or derecognising unions, then the nuance is important.

 

[MattRat]

If said millionaire had a reputation for smashing or derecognising unions, then the nuance is important.

Isn't that most if not all of them? How do you think they got that rich to begin with?

 

[takno]

Reminds me of the hate towards the idea of Musk buying Twitter. Any other billionaire is fine, lol, just not so and so billionaire....

Most billionaires are pretty awful tbh. Musk is probably just slightly worse than averagely bad for a billionaire. His habit of convincing a surprising number of people that he's some kind of living saint is very irritating though.

Branson is poorer and somewhat less irritating, but he's never struck me as a particularly good person, and doesn't really deserve the plaudits he gets. He's not particularly relatable, and has never appeared to be driven by improving the lives of his customers, or anybody else for that matter.

 

[Merle Haggard]

Mr Branson presented Virgin Atlantic as the plucky fighter for consumers with innovative services versus the mighty British Airways. David v Goliath.

However, when Mr Branson ran the mighty Virgin Trains he didn't take kindly to the threat of competition from plucky fighters for the consumer with innovative services like Wales & West or Wrexham & Shropshire. He blocked them.

Funny that.

 

[DarloRich]

I don't buy the Virgin brand bullsh*t in any way, shape or form. If folk have had good experiences with them then that's great, but I really do not see quite how they seem to deserve the fawning hero-worship.

As for comparisons to Avanti, I have not yet had any opportunity to compare. But given that my main metric is that the train runs to time, I would say that they are about par. Likewise, the trains themselves are still the same and offer the same standards of accommodation.

Agree 100% - as I have said the trains, service, cost, punctuality and comfort remains about the same. i cant comment on first ( and feel some posters here are detached from reality about that subject) but 2nd class remains as it was.

 

[cactustwirly]

I don't think we're comparing like for like here.

Most of Stagecoach/Virgin's franchises dated from 2007 under completely different terms (more freedoms) than First group in 2017/18, which includes more DfT meddling. This is even more so with COVID etc, where they are basically controlled by the DfT.

Personally I found stagecoach SWT and EMT to be very average. EMT in particular felt like it was being run by Arriva, aka only the bare minimum was done. SWT had tatty and dirty trains and overpriced fares. Personally I think Govia Southern is a much better TOC than SWT.

I've traveled with SWR and I find them better, the trains are clean and recently refurbished in a nice colour scheme

 

[Tetchytyke]

Personally I found stagecoach SWT and EMT to be very average

SWT started off badly by sacking all the drivers, but it did gradually improve. I can't comment on fares but the SWT trains tended to be cleaner than those run by Southern.

EMT? The regional services really were no better than they were under Central Trains, the Liverpool-Nottingham service was probably worse (not helped by the DfT sending the 170s away to be wasted on Birmingham commuter trains, to be fair) and the Intercity services were noticeably worse than they were under Midland Mainline.

But the amount of DfT meddling really does show that it doesn't really matter which company runs which TOC, they can't control anything.

 

[The Planner]

Mr Branson presented Virgin Atlantic as the plucky fighter for consumers with innovative services versus the mighty British Airways. David v Goliath.

However, when Mr Branson ran the mighty Virgin Trains he didn't take kindly to the threat of competition from plucky fighters for the consumer with innovative services like Wales & West or Wrexham & Shropshire. He blocked them.

Funny that.

They had to under the moderation of competition direction.

 

[fgwrich]

I haven't said that you do. But many folk certainly do seem to.

As for comparisons to Avanti, I have not yet had any opportunity to compare. But given that my main metric is that the train runs to time, I would say that they are about par. Likewise, the trains themselves are still the same and offer the same standards of accommodation.

I've had a small chance to compare the two operators, and I would say Virgin were the more reliable of the two TOC. In the 6 or so times I've used the WCML, at least 4 of those were with Virgin. All ran to time, with no issues to report whatsoever. My last two experiences with Avanti however have been incredibly poor, only really made up by the much improved (and DfT imposed) delay repay scheme. The first one involved travelling back from Glasgow to Euston, where we were told on the approach to Preston that, due to disruption earlier in the day on the southern end of the WCML, that our service would be terminated here and that our tickets would be accepted on the next service southbound (itself Cancelled). Over an hour and a bit later I had the choice of a Euston via Birmingham service or a direct Euston service 15 minutes later - which, as that arrived ahead of the via Birmingham service I took. No visible staff onboard and First Class had become a free for all (which made buying a FC ticket rather pointless). The second journey with them encountered delays, but at least the communication was better this time. But, still not a patch on the previous operator.

I too didn't buy into the Virgin PR Machine, it was sickly, but not as sickly or as cringeworthy as the Avanti "Let's pretend were the same as Virgin" PR Machine. And I still find it odd, living here in the South, that my television is often bombarded with Avanti's advert during the ad breaks.

The only crumb I can see so far is the refurbishment of their Voyager fleet. But why oh why, did they come up with a smart moquette and interior design, only to ignore it and replace it with the sickly colours (from the photos we've seen on here at least) in the full fat Pendolino refurbishment.

As for SWR - Whoever came up with that livery design ought to be relieved of their MacBook. SWT felt bright, they felt colourful, they felt warming, and the tri-colour fleet was a smart idea. First have done the same on GWR, in creating a unified brand and a uniform fleet, they've become utterly bland. The flat cloth used on the seats is not wearing well - I can provide recent examples if people want - and the monochrome colour scheme is depressing, only made slightly better by the bright oranges left on the inside of the Desiro's, or the simplified exterior where the silly vinyl stripes have been dropped. Again, I'll give them a small crumb in that they have improved the onboard cleanliness, but that really is about it - externally the fleet is often dirty and, particularly on the 159s with their white roofs, at times this winter has looked awful. I've been using SWR a lot less over the last few years (mostly for leisure purposes these days) but, when we do actually have a service, it's been average. The ridiculously savage covid timetable cut backs have left a sour note for a lot of people too - journeys like a relatively short hop from Basingstoke to Winchester for example, which used to be at least every 15 minutes with both SWR/T and XC, have become hourly (now a little more frequents thankfully, but it's not perfect!).

I can only guess that the near revolving door of the MD situation hasn't helped either, having gone from Andy Mellors to Mark Hopwood (briefly) to Claire Mann in the relatively short space of the franchise already.

 

[Gloster]

...has never appeared to be driven by improving the lives of his customers, or anybody else for that matter.

Not quite. He believes in improving his life and that of his family.

 

[HarryL]

Virgin Trains USA is in dispute with the operating company in Florida (Brightline) about Virgin branding.

Virgin trains USA has long since been killed off by Brightline. It turned out they didn't actually give a penny of the promised support they were meant to give in exchange for the branding license.

Brightline is a very good example of what Virgin usually does, they'll license out their name and brand, give as minimal support/care as they can, but reap all the publicity from it at the expense of who actually runs it.

Even the west coast franchise was day to day run by Stagecoach. Had they won back the franchise in 2019, Virgin would have dropped to a minority share with SNCF having a bigger percentage, yet they would still be raking in the publicity and good will from it as if they were responsible.

 

[Clansman]

Stagecoach went out with a bit of a bang with their legal action against the DfT - but over the years I certainly considered them a reliable operator.

I use Avanti regularly, and despite it being the same higher management, it feels like a completely different level of service - and not better for sure. Personally, I think it's a shame that they've gone so downhill but equally COVID has had its impact.

But the situation at SWR with the constant fleet plan reshuffle, and EMR being the way it was - was the loss of Stagecoach bad for the railway?

Hasn't felt like any significant has happened with the transition to be honest.

I feel that Virgin's snazzy brand marketing is what gave people the illusion they were better than what they actually were, especially seeing as they were the mainstay for so long on the WCML. So add that into the mix and you have a loyal customer base out of nothing.

 

[yorksrob]

I don't think we're comparing like for like here.

Most of Stagecoach/Virgin's franchises dated from 2007 under completely different terms (more freedoms) than First group in 2017/18, which includes more DfT meddling. This is even more so with COVID etc, where they are basically controlled by the DfT.

Personally I found stagecoach SWT and EMT to be very average. EMT in particular felt like it was being run by Arriva, aka only the bare minimum was done. SWT had tatty and dirty trains and overpriced fares. Personally I think Govia Southern is a much better TOC than SWT.

I've traveled with SWR and I find them better, the trains are clean and recently refurbished in a nice colour scheme

I always found SWT's trains too be rather well cared for. Certainly compared to the same train types on Connex.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

That

However, when Mr Branson ran the mighty Virgin Trains he didn't take kindly to the threat of competition from plucky fighters for the consumer with innovative services like Wales & West or Wrexham & Shropshire. He blocked them.

They were blocked by the franchise agreement (ie by government/Opraf).
The block would have applied whoever won the ICWC franchise.
The block expired at the end of the first franchise term in 2012.
There's still no OA operator on the WCML, though the proposed Stirling service is still going through the ORR mill.
Alliance/GNWR gave up before starting the Blackpool service.