Virgin Trains Urges Customers to Book Seats as Easter Trains Fill up

LONDON, March 18, 2013 /PRNewswire/ --

Virgin Trains is urging those planning to use its services over the Easter weekend to firm up their plans and take advantage of free seat reservations. 100,000 tickets for Virgin Trains services have already been sold for the period from Thursday 28 March to Tuesday 2 April. With significant engineering works taking place across the network a reserved seat helps ensure the best possible journey.

Route improvement works by our colleagues at Network Rail mean alterations to many Virgin Trains services over the Easter weekend and journey times will be longer than usual. Improvements will be made at a number of locations, such as Bletchley where the completion of a £120m project will bring a range of benefits, including 125 mph train speeds.

People thinking of travelling at Easter can find out how their journeys will be affected by:

• Going to our website - view or download our information leaflet or check out how services are affected on individual days by looking at our calendar. http://www.virgintrains.com.    
• Visiting one of our stations - pick up a leaflet or chat to our staff.
• Calling for more information - on 0845 484950

There will be no need for customers to buy Peak tickets for use from Friday 29 March to Monday 1 April inclusive - cheaper Off-peak tickets will be valid on all trains.

Customers should take the opportunity to use our seat reservation service when buying tickets in advance. It is easy and is included free of charge when buying in advance on our website (http://www.virgintrains.com).

Customers holding an Off-Peak or Anytime ticket can also reserve a seat, free of charge, either at any manned station or by calling our Customer Relations team on 0845 000 8000. If purchased on the web or through Telesales, customers should phone 0871 977 4222.

Maundy Thursday (28 March)

Services will run as normal all day on the London - North Wales, London - Liverpool, London - Manchester, London - Scotland routes and Birmingham - Scotland routes.  Services on the London - West Midlands route will run as normal until mid afternoon.

From 1500 Virgin Trains services will start and terminate at Birmingham New Street. Local trains will run between New Street and Sandwell & Dudley, and rail replacement coaches between Sandwell & Dudley and Wolverhampton in both directions.

Good Friday (29 March)

Services will run as normal all day on the London - North Wales, London - Liverpool and London - Manchester routes.  Services between London and the West Midlands will be affected all day, and between England and Scotland from lunchtime.

On the London - West Midlands route Virgin Trains services will start and terminate at Birmingham New Street. Local trains will run between New Street and Sandwell & Dudley, and replacement coaches between Sandwell & Dudley and Wolverhampton in both directions.

The last through services on the London - Glasgow route will leave Euston at 1030 and Glasgow at 1040. The last through services on the Birmingham - Edinburgh route will leave New Street at 1115 and Edinburgh at 0852. Later services will involve using rail replacement coaches between Oxenholme and Preston in both directions.

Easter Saturday (30 March)

Services on the London - North Wales, London - Liverpool and London - Manchester routes will run as normal. Services will again be affected between London and the West Midlands and between England and Scotland.

On the London - West Midlands route Virgin Trains services will start and terminate at Birmingham New Street. Local trains will run between New Street and Sandwell & Dudley, and replacement coaches between Sandwell & Dudley and Wolverhampton in both directions.

On England - Scotland routes, rail replacement coach services operate all day between Preston and Carlisle in both directions and, additionally, from 1700 between Carlisle, Glasgow and Edinburgh in both directions.

Services on the London - Liverpool route will start and terminate at Runcorn. A rail replacement coach service will run between Runcorn and Lime Street in both directions.

Easter Sunday (31 March)

All Virgin Trains routes other than London - Liverpool  are affected by route improvement works.

On the London - West Midlands route Virgin Trains services will start and terminate at Birmingham New Street. Local trains will run between New Street and Sandwell & Dudley, and replacement coaches between Sandwell & Dudley and Wolverhampton in both directions.

On England - Scotland routes, rail replacement coach services will operate all day between Preston and Carlisle in both directions, and between Carlisle, Glasgow and Edinburgh in both directions.

Services on the London - Liverpool route will start and terminate at Runcorn. A rail replacement coach service will run between Runcorn and Lime Street in both directions.

On the London - Manchester route two rather than the usual three trains an hour will operate in each direction, but will not call at Stoke-on Trent, Macclesfield or Stockport. Rail replacement coach services will operate between Wilmslow and Stockport in both directions and between Wilmslow and Macclesfield in both directions.

There will be no direct services on the London - North Wales route. Customers travelling to or from North Wales or Chester will need to change trains at Crewe.  

No late night Virgin Trains services will arrive at or depart from Euston station. The last train to depart will be the 2225 to Birmingham New Street and the last arrival will be the 2030 from Birmingham New Street. Local train services between Euston and Watford Junction will be supplemented by limited rail replacement coaches in both directions.  

Easter Monday (1 April)

All Virgin Trains routes other London - Liverpool will be affected by route upgrade works in the morning. Services will return to normal running in the afternoon.

All early morning services will start or terminate at Watford Junction. The first through northbound service to leave Euston will be the 0830 to Manchester, and the first through southbound service to arrive in Euston will be the 0550 from Birmingham New Street. Prior to this, local train services between Euston and Watford Junction will be supplemented by limited rail replacement coaches in both directions.  

Morning services on the London - Manchester and London - West Midlands routes will be provided by two instead of usual three trains an hour in each direction. Our West Midlands trains will start and terminate at Birmingham New Street. Local trains will run between New Street and Sandwell & Dudley, and replacement coaches between Sandwell & Dudley and Wolverhampton in both directions.

Notes to Editors

Visit our Media Room website - http://www.virgintrains.co.uk/about/media-room/ for an Image Library of pictures of Virgin Trains and the company's operations, or to subscribe to receive alerts to new press releases.

Virgin Trains has revolutionised rail travel by creating a high speed, high frequency service that has cut journey times and made rail journeys more comfortable. It has operated the West Coast passenger train franchise since 1997, serving key UK cities including London, Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool, Preston and Glasgow.

Virgin Trains is the brand name of Virgin Rail Group (VRG), which is owned 51 percent by Virgin Group and 49 percent by Stagecoach. The Department for Transport has awarded VRG a new franchise contract, which started on 9 December 2012 and will run for up to 23 months.

Virgin Trains has been recognised in numerous awards. In September 2012 Business Traveller magazine readers voted the company the Best UK Domestic Rail Operator for the sixth year running. In 2011 the company was named Best Rail Operator in the Group Leisure Awards (which it also won in 2009 and 2010). In 2011 Virgin Trains won the British Quality Foundation's Achievement Award for Customer Satisfaction.

Customers consistently rate the company the top long-distance rail franchise operator, as measured by the National Passenger Survey (NPS) run by industry watchdog Passenger Focus. In the most recent NPS (Autumn 2012) overall satisfaction was 92%, our best score ever.

Virgin Trains first achieved Investors In People accreditation in 2007 and this was renewed in 2010; the IIP Gold award was achieved in 2011. In May 2011 Virgin Trains was awarded accreditation against the criteria of the European Foundation for Quality Management's (EFQM) Excellence Model. The company's Learning and Development team won a National Training Awards 2011 West Midlands award for its Coaching Culture programme.

For more information about Virgin Trains visit the company's website http://www.virgintrains.com or the Media Room website http://www.virgintrains.co.uk/about/media-room.