“Virgin...I'm glad they got it back. Expensive mistake”

“Neither! Time to end this pretend competition. What's wrong with East Coast - the nationalised rail company. Room for improvement but have avoided the deluge of complaints many privatised experienced, including Virgin in its early days.”

“Virgin everytime. I have used both companys, First as a company is out to rip off as many people as it can as it thinks is has monopolies on routes, and it would have had another had Virgin not gone legal. Not just on trains but on buses too, on buses they charge people nearly a quid more just for travelling on a day ticket at rush hour.

First bid stupid billions of money which would go to the government for running the line. First would then have to recoup this vastly inflated number from the public. Which would mean higher fares for everyone, way above what people are paying now.”

“Pippa,
I`m probably wrong, I usually am but I was under the impression that all the companies involved had to resubmit their bids. Therefore no one has won the contract yet.”

“The reason the Government (Tory) wanted rid of Virgin was because when Virgin were awarded the franchise originally they promised to run extra trains with quicker timings with 'in-cab signalling'. The infrastructure provider at the time (Railtrack) stated that they could install this system for Virgin. Following the award of the franchise (in the cock-eyed system that is the (Tory) privatisation of rail) Railtrack failed to deliver the system claiming to many difficulties... ...we, the tax payers, were left to 'compensate' Virgin every year of their franchise with a guaranteed 'profit' of £9 MILLION because of the Railtrack failing. This payment is made regardless of Virgin's receipts or performance.

Well done to all of those superb 'business brains' in the Tory policy making body that came up with this 'wonderful' selling off of our 'silver'!”

“Yes re-nationalise the railways and reinstate all the tiny branch lines.

The tax payer is paying for the services anyway, we might as well own it.”

“Neither. And now we have to compensate these companies with another £40m of public money. The privatisation of the railways has been an expensive joke from the beginning – and WE are the ones who pay, while shareholders take their dividends.”

“Neither. I like Branson but his trains a re rubbish. I caught one from Manchester to Stoke a couple of years ago and the damned thing got to Stockport and started got belch smoke. It was delayed for half an hour while it 'cooled down'. The world-weary lady opposite me said she was rather surprised as this usually happened when it was around 40 miles from London, at least twice a week.”

“Mr. Branson will be able to pay all this cash back to the Tax Purse when he starts making money from this new service. Might need to purchase some trains first from First. There'll be a few spare.”

“Virgin, at least Branson knows about customer service.”

“In answer to the question, I wouldn't trust the government to decide which to choose. There are estimates that the tax payer will have to refund £40 million to the 4 companies that bid for the franchise and that is without the court case First Group is bound to bring against the government.”

“i picked up a book at the library thinking it was Mr. Branson's autobiography. It was called 'How The West Was Won'.”

“Well my choice certainly wouldn't be Virmin.

I remember when they had the cross country route and their trains were vile and you could smell urine an excrement almost anywhere you sat. Call me old fashioned if you will but I prefer my public transport to be free of a stench like a charnel pit in august.

Then there was the chaotic reservation system which they rarely abided by and often involved moving seats every station because what was stated to be free from Doncaster to Birmingham suddenly became reserved at Derby.

Then there's the over-crowding, late or non-existent trains and surly staff. Branson said he wanted to make travelling by train like travelling by plane. Obviously he was thinking of Easy Jet cattle class not British Airways business class.

Virgin couldn't organise the proverbial in a brewery and should never be left in charge of a whelk stall let alone a railway.”

“We need to raise 9990 more signatures to get Parliament to Debate the further Electrification of the Trans Pennine/ ECML to Hull fron Doncaster or Selby.

http://tinyurl.com/3b2vp85”

“What short memories a lot of people have and how time transforms people's view of history. Prior to privatisation I lived in London and used trains on a daily basis, at least when they were running. The whole network was in thrall to left wing /communist trades union leaders whose sole function in life was to be as disruptive as possible. Localised strikes were a common occurrence and usually without much warning. The mere threat of national strikes used to send the likes Dennis Healy and Tony Wedgewood-Benn scurrying off to the labour relations quangos they had set up to give jobs to their old buddies. If the Labour relations people could not sort it out the craven socialist politicians would hold up their hands and say "its not our fault" when, of course, it was thier fault because they ran the system albeit through nominated 'jobs worths' who were mostly incapable of managing anything.

Since the end of WW2 successive governments of all colours have failed to make sure that investment was poured in to the rail network. The end result is that recent governments thought if they handed the operation of trains over to private companies that would get rid of the problem. But without a modern infrastructure no amount of rolling stock investment will give us a modern system. The only man to have at least tried to improve things was Branson. But he was a victim of his own success because more and more people used his trains and his rolling stock simply could not cope with the increase in numbers.”