History of Virgin
Virgin Trains was born on 29th of November 1996 when it was awarded the Cross Country franchise following the privatisation of British Rail, the franchise will last until April 2012. Along with the Cross Country line, Virgin also won the West Coast franchise and took control on the 9th of March 1997, this franchise will end in March 2012. The West Coast line was the last but one of the franchises to be handed over to the private sector, all of which had been completed in less than three-and-a-half years after the Railways Act had been passed.
Virgin Trains' own definition of the company is on its website, www.virgintrains.co.uk. They describe the company as A truly national network, Virgin Trains covers vast areas of Britain.'
Structure of the Company
Virgin Trains is owned and run by Virgin Management and Stagecoach Plc. The Virgin Management team are the majority shareholders and own 51% of the company as opposed to Stagecoach which owns 49%. Virgin Trains is managed by a board known as Virgin Rail Group and is made up of the Virgin Management team and Stagecoach.
Appendix 1.
To give an idea of the size of Virgin Trains, I have prepared a number of facts and figures that were gathered in 2004.
Turnover in 2004 amounted to £579 million.
Members of staff employed by Virgin Trains reached 4748.
Total passengers per annum was recorded at 34.1 million.
Train miles per annum was a staggering 31.6 million.
It is clear that Virgin Trains is truly a national company, both in terms of its size outlined by the figures above but also by the areas that it serves.
Appendix 2.
The geographical map above shows the extent to which Virgin Trains operates throughout the country...
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...e of which omit high levels of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Pressure groups are able to use media sources to give companies a bad image and this is a major threat not only to Virgin but also other transport operators around the world. Richard Branson has recently announced that he is to donate all profits from Virgin Trains and Virgin Airlines to combat global warming. This is likely to keep the pressure groups away from Virgin at least for the time being.
References
Appendix 1.
A report by Virgin on ownership and structure of the company. http://www.virgintrainsmediaroom.com/media.
Appendix 2.
A section of the Virgin trains website that provides network maps and geographical maps.
http://www.virgintrains.co.uk/travelling_with_us/our_network
Trends data.
Data on the company and industry.
http://www.rail-reg.gov.uk/upload/pdf/nrt0405-yr-rev.pdf
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Mintel. (2012). 91.4% of trains on time in January 2012. Available: http://academic.mintel.com.atlas.worc.ac.uk/sinatra/oxygen_academic/display/id=611570?highlight#hit1. Last accessed 2nd January 2014.
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