Press release -
PAINTING THE TRAINS RED
Virgin Trains East Coast has reached the half-way point in rolling out the new bright red Virgin livery to its fleet in what is the biggest rebranding exercise on the East Coast Main Line in a decade.
The transformation of the fleet has attracted such attention Virgin Trains East Coast commissioned a time-lapse film of a diesel High Speed Train being wrapped at Craigentinny depot in Edinburgh.
More than four cameras recorded hundreds of hours of video over five days to create the sequence that shows the sixth HST set to be reliveried.
Currently there are 7 HST sets and 16 electric sets in the new livery of the 45 trains in the Virgin Trains East Coast fleet.
David Horne, Managing Director at Virgin Trains East Coast, said: “We’re thrilled to see the Virgin logo in its full glory adorning our HST trains. The work done by the team at our Edinburgh Craigentinny depot is fantastic. We’ve had some great feedback from our customers too.”
The rebranding of the entire fleet is expected to be completed by November.
50,000 square metres of vinyl will be used as part of the project to relivery the fleet between each of the depots at Craigentinny and Bounds Green in London.
Designer of the new Virgin Trains East Coast livery, Ray Stenning of Best Impressions said: “It’s great to be involved with such an exciting project to make the trains look much sexier and create a dynamic new look. Reaction to and feedback about the trains out and about on the route has been incredible.”
Virgin Trains East Coast took over the franchise on 1 March 2015 but only a few of the trains had interim branding so as not to cause any disruption to services.
ENDS
Topics
- Public Transport
Categories
- east coast
- business news
- trains
Regions
- England
Contact the Virgin Trains East Coast Press Office: 0116 366 3988 during office hours (09.00 - 17.30 Mon-Fri). Outside these times, and for urgent media enquiries only, please call 08700 005151 and ask for the duty Virgin Trains East Coast press officer to be paged.
Virgin Trains East Coast is the brand name of InterCity Railways Ltd (ICR), which is owned by Stagecoach Group (90%) and Virgin Group (10%). Virgin Trains East Coast began operating services on the East Coast Main Line on Sunday 1 March 2015, serving key UK cities including London, Peterborough, Doncaster, Leeds, York, Newcastle, Edinburgh, Aberdeen and Inverness. In November 2014 the Department for Transport awarded ICR a new franchise until at least 31 March 2023.
Virgin Trains East Coast is committed to delivering a high speed, high quality service with new services, faster and more frequent journeys, more comfortable travel and excellent customer service. More than £140m is to be invested in delivering improved service and a more personalised travel experience for customers.
Visit the Virgin Trains East Coast Media Centre at: http://www.virgintrainseastcoast.com/media-centre for the latest news and images.
STAGECOACH GROUP
• Stagecoach Group is a leading international public transport group, with extensive operations in the UK, mainland Europe, the United States and Canada. The Group employs around 38,000 people, and operates bus, coach, train, and tram services.
• Stagecoach is one of the UK’s biggest bus and coach operators with around 8,300 buses and coaches. Around 2.8 million passenger journeys are made on Stagecoach's buses every day on a network stretching from south-west England to the Highlands and Islands of Scotland. The Group’s business includes major city bus operations in London, Liverpool, Newcastle, Hull, Manchester, Oxford, Sheffield and Cambridge. Low-cost coach service, megabus.com, operates a network of inter-city services across the UK and continental Europe.
• Stagecoach is a major UK rail operator, running the South West Trains, Island Line and East Midlands Trains networks. It is also the majority shareholder (90%) in the new Virgin Trains East Coast franchise and has a 49% shareholding in Virgin Rail Group, which operates the West Coast rail franchise.
• Stagecoach also operates the Supertram light rail network in Sheffield.
• In North America, Stagecoach operates around 2,400 buses and coaches in the United States and Canada. Megabus.com links around 130 key locations in North America. Stagecoach is also involved in operating commuter, transit, airport express services, contracted, charter and sightseeing services.
