they were, but the ECML is a really hard franchise to make a prophit off of, thats why GNER, NXEC and Virgin lost the franchise. East Coast and LNER are government owned
If only East Coast had remained. Virgin to their credit did make an effort to re-livery all their trains (unlike SWR), but the livery and the interiors were garish, just like the rest of the company. It’ll be nice ti see some prestige return to the ECML. Hopefully the new LNER livery is as classy as the name and logo
Agreed GNER and the new GWR are both fine examples, elegant and understated. Great central is nice too. Hopefully we will get something comparable. Never liked the VTEC livery, looked garish and cheap to me.
Robert Comer are you for real look at the roads, schools, emergency services, military and anything else that's in public ownership and it's a fucking shambles the government will strip the railway down to a shell of what it is now if they get there filthy hands on it.
Yeah, British Rail was short for cash even before privatization. They were stuck between public impression and the government's stringent funds relying heavily on their cheap ticket prices and high-value freight for profit. Not to mention the fact that MANY of their prototypes (Mainly type 1, type 2, type 3 and type 4 diesels) were rushed through development leading to many of them being failures (overheating, engine problems underpowered etc...).
Still in the model railway world perhaps a delight to the struggling cash cow that is hornby, as its new reason to bring out another HST set with the new livery and charge even more higher costs ?! Lol. Bring back B.R
Fancy Seeing You Here LOL BTW Yeah Its Sad Virgin Has Gone + The Fact That There West Coast One Went To Trenitallia And First Also I Really Hope SWR Gets Nationalized Beacuse Its A Nightmare I Hate My Local Train + I Think Ive Ranted It On Discord
Return of the teak coach and the HST power cars and those used on the Aberdeen route being done in Darlington green and the Leeds sets being done in Doncaster Green or straight Silver livery, hmm food for thought.
GNER was the best and they were the only private company on the East Coast mainline franchise to last a full franchise term (1996-2005), but a number of things caused their collapse during their second franchise. They bid high, but perhaps could have managed if their parent company (Sea Containers) was on the verge of collapse. We then had National Express give it a shot, that wasn't a particularly good time. Hopefully LNER will add a bit of style like GNER did
The whole of our railway system here in the UK needs some significant changes. I see Northern has cancelled loads of services for us up in the northwest, not good. We need hyperloops rather than train's, ones that do 700mph.
Here's hoping the new LNER scheme will be classier than the VTEC scheme.....I never liked that bright red all over the interior and the livery looked a bit cheap imo. GNER did a good job with things for 10 years, NX and VTEC both lasted less than 3. Let's hope this silliness comes to an end under LNER!
Despite the video getting everyone's hopes up I doubt the interior will change as it's still new and the trains will start being phased out next year. Did you see the video I posted on Thursday where the CEO of Stagecoach admits they realised they made a mistake within a few weeks of the franchise starting.
(not american, nor a train person) I thought they were actually debranding the train, I then saw a roll of tape stuck to the side of the train rolling upwards, and the windows being painted strangely. Then I read the description and it all made sense :)
I'm used to Twitter where there's a limit to 4 (turns out RU-vid has a limit of 5 options, just checked, so I know for next time). I picked the ones that I thought would be the most popular.
The issue with the ECML all boils down to the operator. When GNER were running it it went well until the fat cats got greedy. Slapping the LNER name into a service for nostalgia doesn't stop greed but Chris Grayling still did it. I don't even know if he has ever driven a train!
True, a nostalgic name doesn't mean a good service. But I'm hoping a change of leadership and discarding the Virgin baggage will at least put the operator on the right track.
Save East Coast Rewards I agree. It was about time for a change. I reckon that the next major franchise change will be on the Great Western lines. Their lease ends in 2025 and I don't think First will keep it due to a number of reasons.
It's ok, it's an April fools done before all this was announced, it never really happened 😀 It's just when the news that Virgin Trains East Coast was going to be no more this video jumped in popularity. I think LNER will keep most of the livery and I'm sure the seats will remain the same (minus the Virgin headrests in first class)
Virgin Trains did an absolutely diabolical job on the West Coast Mainline and even by their own franchising rules, they should have left it in 2012. Instead, they decide to take over the East Coast Mainline, which was doing just fine in state ownership and, surprise, surprise, its standards have gone straight down the toilet. For everyone who likes to sneer at British Rail's standards in the years before privatisation, it's worth noting that, had they remained state-owned, they could easily have improved and by now, been similar to the rest of western Europe's railways. Virgin needs to be sent to the back of the shed in disgrace!
eisemanrenyardjake Just remember Virgin only had a 10% stake in the east coast franchise. 90% was Stagecoach and they were the main operators of the franchise using Virgins name. No wonder its failed again with Stagecoach at the helm. I find it ironic that the Government, have decided to use LNER, as a name, considering that was the private owner of the east coast route pre nationalisation in 1948.
+Zoe Danielle Batchelor To be fair ripping off the name of one of the old railway companies when forming a new one was a trend new GWR started already. First Great Western Limited != Great Western Railways though they paint it all over the side of their trains pretending like they are lol.
Not being funny. But my normal experience of Virgin West Coast is of reliable service. Only did it twice, but couldn't fault breakfast in first class, and even standard is ordinarily unproblematic.
Exactly, you were in first class. I've traveled in both first and standard (I only ever went once in first) and I have to say, it's more like an airline in that unless you're lucky enough to be going first class, it's a tedious, uncomfortable experience. That's no way to run a train service (or an airline, frankly)! Before privatisation, I found standard was pretty good and regulars on Virgin West Coast will tell you from experience that it's incredibly problematic; delays, cancellations and disruptions on virtually a daily basis
Read the description, this was an April fools joke, the video is played backwards so what you see is the old East Coast livery. It's LNER taking over from VTEC and we don't know how they'll look
How many times have all the trains on the ECM been rebranded inside and out and how much money has it cost? Add to this the new uniforms for thousands of staff and new stationary etc? The money could have been used much better elsewhere! What a complete fooking fiasco
There is an aweful lot of British Rail bashing here, were they not responsible for procuring Britain's best ever train, the HST? introducing Network Southeast, the best train service Sussex has ever had and working with British manufacturers to introduce the various Sprinter DMU's. Sussex now has an aweful train service, HST seats are far more comfortable than an Azuma seat not to mention the Azuma offers no significant advantage to the passenger more than forty years after the HST was introduced. British Rail was not brilliant, but it was improving significantly at the time of privatization. I am ashamed that Britain no longer produces all of it's own locomotives and rolling stock, the Mk 3 carriage is the best to ever run on BR and yes I am aware even in BR days some parts were procured from overseas and that companies were multinational, but at least the skills to do the job were British. I am a British engineer who worked on components used to manufacture trains, it only takes one stupid government decision to decimate an industry, we have John Major to thank for that, it is time for the government to put Britain and British workers first. It will mean having to end the moronic all or nothing procurement situation that has predominated since privatization and replacing it with a sensible constant flow of replacement stock, this might cause some current stock to stay in service a little longer. Some privatization has been successful, but overall it has not succeeded as intended. Comparisons are always made with BR at its worst in the early seventies, it was doing a reasonable job at the time of privatization. Today the government still takes all the risks and picks up the pieces when things go wrong, that isn't how it was supposed to work. I wish the new East Coast franchise all the best and by the way I enjoyed the tongue in cheek video.
Read the description, this one is a joke, it was originally a video of the Virgin branding being applied but played backwards. It's not clear what rebranding will be done by LNER when they take over on 24 June
They're not going under. Virgin Atlantic will still exist it's just Branson has sold a share of it to Air France-KLM, Delta already had 49%. Many Virgin companies just licence the name and have nothing to do with Branson
They do currently but it's not clear whether the brand will start to be removed before the new franchise starts.When National Express took over from GNER they had all the GNER branding removed in the last week of GNER. If I find out more I will post the info to Twitter
I'm pretty sure Virgin will want their name gone from the side of the trains as soon as the franchise ends, after all they charge companies quite a lot for the right to licence the Virgin name. The LNER website is using the same shade of red as Virgin use so it might be a case of just sticking LNER over the Virgin logos. We won't know for sure nearer the time. Things like uniforms will probably remain the Virgin ones to begin with, not sure the plan for the headrests in first class as they're attached to the seat.
Apparently the franchise agreement does state that VTEC would have to cover the costs of removing their branding making the fleet fit to be passed to a new operator. That was for when the franchise came to a natural end, not sure if it applies now it's been terminated. If it does I imagine they might ask them to cover the costs for removing the branding from the headrests. Replacing the seats like in the video wouldn't happen
Virgin Trains (west coast) are carrying on as normal. Virgin Trains East Coast is a different company so the closure of their franchise won't affect the west coast route.
I’d love to know how much this latest mess has cost the taxpayer. When is the U.K. government going to stop wasting our money? A contract is a contract, make them stick to the terms even if it results in their bankruptcy. It’s all about shareholders profits in the end and the taxpayer is forced by morons like Grayling to bail them out.
What exactly have they not got which they thought they were going to get? (hint: nothing that they expected Network Rail to deliver or Hitachi was due to be delivered yet so it's not a legit reason, they're failing because they overbid, not learning the lessons of last time)
It was Stagecoach who created the forecasts, have a look at this video where they admit they realised their mistake early on: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-q9O6-ALq0NQ.html (if you have time watch the full video on the parliament website, link is in the video description)
Here we are just about to leave the EU ,they say support British buisnesses yet most of our trains are run and owned by european countries,we are a joke
All these comments about re-nationalising the rail network, well for my two pennorth, had BR been given the same amount of cash that the new companies get in subsidy, we would have a rail system to be proud of.
BR could do well when they had the money. The trains currently used on this line were all from BR and they've lasted well. If you look up 'InterCity 250' on Wikipedia you'll see that BR had much better plans for the west coast than what Virgin ended up delivering. But BR were starved of funds and projects shelved in the run up to privatisation
They weren't starved of funds; they spent their money in all the wrong places. The British countryside is still littered with the blots of their massive marshalling yards that cost millions, but were never used to even half capacity. There was a specific clause that said their rail operations had to make a profit; look where it got us. They inherited a Victorian network, and that's exactly how they left it.
This is what happens every time a train company fucks up? U really think passengers give a shit about logos colour of seats no wonder we pay through the bastard 👃!
