Services on the East Coast Main Line have been brought back under public control following the failure of the Virgin Trains East Coast (VTEC) franchise.
Trains on the vital route between London and Scotland are being run by the Department for Transport’s (DfT) Operator of Last Resort, branded as London North Eastern Railway (LNER).
The first LNER service departed from Newcastle to London King’s Cross at 7.54am on Sunday.
VTEC, a joint venture between Stagecoach (90%) and Virgin (10%), began operating in March 2015.
The firms agreed to pay the Government £3.3 billion to run trains until 2023, but the contract was ended prematurely after they failed to achieve revenue targets.
LNER will operate until a public-private partnership takes responsibility for both trains and track operations in 2020.
All VTEC staff have been transferred to LNER as part of the transition.
Managing director David Horne said: “Our immediate priority is ensuring a smooth transition for customers, staff and the communities we serve.
“Our message to everyone who depends on this service is that it is business as usual.
“Existing tickets are still valid on our services, and new tickets can be bought in the same way. The same scheduled trains are also in operation.”
The East Coast route connects London King’s Cross to stations in the North and Scotland including York, Leeds, Newcastle, Edinburgh, Aberdeen and Inverness.
Transport Secretary Chris Grayling refuted accusations from Labour and trade unions that his decision to end VTEC’s franchise early was a “bailout” worth £2 billion.
“Stagecoach will be held to all of its contractual obligations in full,” the minister said.
The switch from VTEC to LNER is costing an estimated £8 million, which includes marketing, rebranding and IT set up.
VTEC is the third private operator to fail to complete the full length of a contract to run East Coast services.
GNER was stripped of the route in 2007 after its parent company suffered financial difficulties, while National Express withdrew in 2009.
Trains were run by the DfT for six years up to VTEC taking over.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel