Rail giants may bid for East Coast service following National Express pull out (From York Press)

Rail giants may bid for East Coast service following National Express pull out

12:25pm Wednesday 1st July 2009

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TWO of the UK rail industry’s biggest players have confirmed they are interested in taking on the East Coast Mainline service after it was abandoned by current operator National Express.

First Trains and Virgin have said they will be considering any invitation from the Department For Transport to tender for the operation.

The service, which runs through and sees 450 administration staff employed in the city, will be put in to public ownership until a new operator is found A spokesman for Virgin Trains said the company was giving “serious s consideration” to putting in a bid for the service.

“We will see what the invitation for tender looks like from the Department of Transport “We did try for the East Coat franchise in 2007 with what we thought was a sensible bid. National Express beat us with the money they would pay to the Government but we are seeing the consequences of that now.

He added: “We have got form and we will be giving this serious consideration.”

Virgin said it was too early to comment on the future of the 450 administration jobs which are now in question in York since the pull-out of National Express.

A spokesman for First, another major player in the retail industry said talk of job losses at this stage would be “completely hypothetical.”

However he did confirm that First would be considering any invitation to tender from the Government.

“As a long-time player in the rail industry we are always interested in new opportunities and would be interested in looking at this franchise as and when it comes up for bidding,” he said.

“The question of where a theoretical HQ would be is far too early to say – its way off down the line.

Meanwhile, Grand Central, the York-based rail operator which currently runs three trains a day to and from the capital but will shortly launch a fourth daily service, revealed it had not ruled itself out of the running for the new franchise.

A spokesman said: "If the DfT re-tenders the franchise, we would look carefully at it."

He said that figures just released by Passenger Focus had revealed that 94 per cent of Grand Central passengers were satisfied or very satisfied with the company's services.

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