West Coast Main Line UK doubles its number of passengers in 7 years
West Coast Main Line UK doubles its number of passengers in 7 years
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Sir Richard Branson, founder of the Virgin Group invited Patrick Kron on 7 December to attend a celebration of the 30 millionth passenger to have travelled on the on West Coast Main Line in 2011, double the numbers carried just seven years ago.
The event, also attended by Sir Brian Souter, Chairman of Stagecoach Group, and Tony Collins, Chief Executive Officer of Virgin Trains, was the occasion to highlight the successful operation of Virgin Trains on the route, supported by Alstom who designed, built and today maintains the fleet of 53 high speed Pendolino trains. Alstom is also working with Virgin and Angel Trains who leases the vehicles, to provide three new 11-car trains and 62 extra carriages to lengthen 31 of the existing 9-car trains, to create more than 7000 additional seats on the fleet by the end of 2012.
Patrick Kron recalled the early days of Alstom and Virgin working relationship, which involved introducing new trains and new ways of working: “Virgin turned Alstom from an engineering company into a full service company.” Indeed, Virgin has often praised the support it has received from Alstom in achieving its 90 per cent overall satisfaction score in National Passenger Survey, the highest of any long-distance franchise operator.
“I'm proud of the fact that other operators from around the World visit our UK operations to see how we work together with Virgin,” added Mr. Kron.
Sir Richard said that innovation and quality had been key drivers in growing passenger numbers on West Coast and made clear that a strong bid would be submitted when the franchise comes up for renewal in 2012. "Bids should be a beauty parade of innovation and quality and not simply judged on bottom line results. If you just go for the bottom line you will have the cheapest of everything and that's not what people want. We are waiting to see whether the new franchise will be based purely on the bottom line, but are hopeful that the Government will be taking innovative ideas into account."
Virgin operates the West Coast Main Line in Great Britain, which fleet was built and is maintained by Alstom.