Avanti West Coast

**Avanti West Coast**, colloquially known as **Virgin Trains**, and is italian for '**Forward West Coast**', is a train operating company in the United Kingdom owned by FirstGroup and Trenitalia that began operating the West Coast Partnership franchise on March 21st, 2020. It temporarily replaced Virgin Trains, which had operated the franchise since 1997.

## History

In November 2016, the Department for Transport (DfT) announced that the InterCity West Coast franchise would be superseded by the West Coast Partnership (WCP), which would include operating High Speed 2 (HS2) services from 2026.

The DfT required that bidders have experience in high-speed trains and infrastructure, hence all partnered with an existing high-speed operator. In June 2017, the DfT announced that three consortia had been shortlisted to bid for the franchise:

* FirstGroup / Trenitalia
* MTR Corporation / Guangshen Railway Company
* Stagecoach / SNCF / Virgin Group

In December 2018 Renfe Operadora joined the MTR-led bid. In April 2019, the Stagecoach-led bid was disqualified after it proposed significant changes to the commercial terms.

In August 2019 the DfT awarded the franchise to the First Trenitalia consortium with Avanti West Coast to commence operations on March 21st, 2020. The Competition and Markets Authority launched a merger inquiry into the award of the franchise following a referral from the European Commission.

## Services

Avanti West Coast currently operates the same services as Virgin Trains on the West Coast Main Line. When High Speed 2 opens, it will also operate these services.

Over the course of the franchise several timetable changes are expected to be made.

The main routes are shown below:

### More services

More services include:

* a daily service will be introduced between London Euston and Walsall from December 2020, with an additional northbound service from 2022
* an additional service will be introduced to Shrewsbury from December 2022
* a direct service will be introduced between London Euston and Llandudno during the summer months from May 2021
* Subject to approval by the Office of Rail and Road, an additional hourly service will be introduced between London Euston and Liverpool Lime Street with a stop at Liverpool South Parkway from December 2022
* additional calls will be made at Motherwell from December 2020
* additional direct journeys at Milton Keynes Central to and from London Euston from December 2022
* extension of the daily service from London Euston to Wrexham General to Gobowen from December 2022
* earlier first trains and later last trains from London Euston to Llandudno Junction on weekends from December 2022
* earlier first trains and later last trains from London Euston to Chester on weekends by December 2022
* Later last trains from London Euston to Manchester Piccadilly on weekdays by December 2020

## Rolling stock

Avanti West Coast commenced operations having inherited the existing *Super Voyager* and *Pendolino* fleets from Virgin Trains.

### Current fleet

Plain white with grey doors and Avanti West Coast branding
White with dark green, dark light blue and orange triangles and dark light blue and white doors

### Bus fleet

Avanti West Coast will get six Alexander Dennis Enviro 400s from Megabus.com's Megasightseeing.com sightseeing services (ex-19131-13136) and nine Alexander ALX400 bodied Dennis Tridents (ex-18471-18497) from Stagecoach Group to operate special bus routes (also if the West Coast Main Line had minor delays), but the other four Alexander Dennis Enviro 400s will stay safe in their red London Buses livery at Stagecoach London's Bromley (TB) garage and the other seven Alexander ALX400 bodied Dennis Tridents will stay safe in a plain blue livery at Stagecoach London's West Ham (WH) garage. These buses will stay as open top if they are in the Avanti livery. If Jpike wants to change a bus's livery, he must make it go under a bridge to turn it into one more.

Plug
 Alexander Dennis Enviro 400

### Bus routes

The Alexander Dennis Enviro 400 and Alexander ALX400 bodied Dennis Trident services will operate the Edinburgh Waverley or Glasgow Central route and the Blackpool North route. The Alexander Dennis Enviro 400 services will operate the Euston to Birmingham New Street, Liverpool Lime Street or Manchester Piccadilly via Crewe or Stoke-on-Trent. The Alexander ALX400 bodied Dennis Trident services will operate the Chester, Holyhead and Shrewsbury route. They also run from Tower Gateway DLR station.

### More fleet

Thirteen bi-mode Class 800 units and ten electric multiple units with the former used for services to Shrewsbury, Chester, Gobowen and North Wales and the latter used for services to Birmingham New Street, Blackpool North and Liverpool Lime Street (to be used alongside the *Pendolinos*). The new Hitachi Class 800 fleets will be maintained at Alstom's Oxley TRSMD depot, within Oxley, Wolverhampton.

Vivarail Class 230 D-Trains with 11 carriages which are converted from London Underground D78 Stock trains can be used on the whole Alstom Pendolino route alongside with the Class 390 Pendolinos.

It will also operate a new fleet on High Speed 2 services from 2026.

## Depots

The Class 390 fleet was allocated to the Alstom Traincare Centre at Longsight with lighter maintenance and overnight servicing carried out at Wembley, Oxley, Edge Hill and Polmadie depots. The Class 221 fleet was allocated to Bombardier's Central Rivers depot with lighter maintenance and overnight servicing carried out at Arriva TrainCare, Crewe, Holyhead and Polmadie.

## See also

* East Midlands Railway
* Great Western Railway
* Hull Trains
* London North Eastern Railway
* Transpennine Express