FOUR and a half years after its West Coast Main Line franchise ended, Virgin Trains has made an application to the Office of Rail and Road to run services on the route as an open access operator.
Virgin Group confirmed to The RM that it has submitted a plan for trains between London Euston and Preston, Liverpool Lime Street, Birmingham New Street and Glasgow Central. Preston trains would also serve Nuneaton, Stoke-on-Trent, Stockport, Manchester Piccadilly, Manchester Victoria, Rochdale and Bolton. Liverpool Lime Street services would call at Tamworth, Lichfield Trent Valley, Runcorn and Liverpool South Parkway. Coventry and Birmingham International would be intermediate stops for Birmingham New Street workings, while the proposed new station at Golborne (five miles south of Wigan North Western on the WCML), Preston, Carlisle, Motherwell and Lockerbie would be calling points for its Glasgow Central trains.
The news coincides with FirstGroup’s announcement that it is applying to run trains between Rochdale and Euston as an extension of its Lumo open access business, established on the East Coast Main Line in 2021. Six return journeys a day are proposed, calling at Manchester Victoria, Eccles, Newton-le-Willows and Warrington Bank