Press release -
Virgin Trains celebrates 20 Years on The Track by hosting a ‘pop-up musical performance’ at London’s Euston Station
On 9 March 2017, Virgin Trains celebrates its 20th birthday on the West Coast route, where passenger journeys have grown to 37 million a year.
To celebrate the occasion and give back to their customers, Virgin Trains hosted a ‘pop-up musical performance’ at London Euston which saw choir Urban Voice Collective sing legendary pop song ‘Ain’t Nobody,’ by Chaka Khan. Customers travelling in the midst of rush hour were delighted by the impromptu singing and dancing performance which lasted around 5 minutes.
The maiden voyage in 1997 was unveiled by Sir Richard Branson at London Euston, the same week that Spice Girls were number one in the charts and Jerry Maguire was number one at the box office. The first ever Virgin Train was named ‘Mission: Impossible’, and since then the fleet has grown to 76 trains serving 49 stations.
Hungry passengers have been served over five million English breakfasts whilst travelling a combined total of nearly 335 million miles, three and a half times the distance to the sun.
The celebrations will continue onboard throughout March with the introduction of five films onto BEAM for a limited time only (Virgin Trains’ free onboard content service), all of which are celebrating their 20th birthday. These include Titanic, Men in Black, The Full Monty, LA Confidential and Boogie Nights.
To ensure that passengers can get involved in the celebrations too, Virgin Trains is launching a six-day 20th Birthday Seat Sale online. From Thursday 9 March to Tuesday 14 March, prices will be slashed by up to 55 per cent on Standard and First Class fares on the Virgin Trains West Coast route. Discounted tickets will be available to book at virgintrains.co.uk from 00:01 on Thursday 9 March.
YOUTUBE LINK: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2VOPwrdKhSs
EMBED LINK: <iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/2VOPwrdKhSs" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Topics
- Art, Culture, Entertainment
About Virgin Trains:
Stagecoach and Virgin are working in partnership to operate the East Coast and West Coast inter-city routes under the Virgin Trains brand. Together, they are on track to revolutionise rail travel across the UK.
The combined network connects some of the nation’s most iconic destinations including Glasgow, Liverpool, Birmingham, Manchester, Edinburgh, Newcastle, Leeds, York and London.
Virgin Trains is committed to delivering a high speed, high frequency service, offering shorter journey times, more comfortable travel and excellent customer service. Customers consistently rate Virgin Trains as one of the top long-distance rail franchise operators in the National Rail Passenger Survey (NRPS) commissioned by industry watchdog, Transport Focus.
On the East Coast route, £140m is being invested to create a more personalised travel experience. We have already invested £21m to completely revamp our existing fleet and customers can now benefit from 42 additional services (22,000 extra seats) per week between Edinburgh and London. 2018 will see the introduction of completely new Azuma trains being built in the UK by Hitachi.
The West Coast route has a proud record of challenging the status quo - from introducing tilting Pendolino trains, to a pioneering automated delay repay scheme and becoming the first franchised rail operator to offer m-Tickets for all ticket types.
Visit the Virgin Trains Media Room - virgintrains.co.uk/about/media-room - for the latest news, images and videos. Subscribe here for regular news from Virgin Trains.
Press Office: 0845 000 3333.
