Dépêches

Additional Services to Continue as Thousands of Stranded Air Travellers Turn to Virgin Trains.

Dépèche transmise le 23 avril 2010 par PRNewswire

LONDON, April 23, 2010 /PRNewswire/ -- Anglo-Scottish travellers considering their travel options during continuing air travel problems will benefit from Virgin Trains' decision to continue providing extra weekday services next week in addition to its regular London - Glasgow services.

London-Glasgow fares start from GBP17.50 Advance Single, making travelling by train the best choice. These Advance tickets are available on many services, including the 20:00 Glasgow Central to London Euston additional weekday service.

Virgin Trains will be running a full weekend service this weekend (24-25 April) following the lifting of engineering restrictions on Anglo-Scottish routes by Network Rail. Advance Tickets are still available for many of these weekend services.

This announcement follows a week of enhanced weekday services provided by Virgin Trains to assist air travellers. More than 4,000 additional seats have made available daily on Virgin Trains services to help passengers who have been unable to travel by air. Virgin Trains reports a 205% increase in customers using its London - Glasgow route since the Air Travel crisis began on Thursday 15 April, and a 770% increase on its London - Holyhead route.

Virgin Trains confirmed today that their enhanced weekday service would continue from Monday 26 to Friday 30 April to help ease the travel backlog.

Additional Sunday Services for Virgin London Marathon

Demand for rail travel to London is expected to be high this weekend as competitors and spectators travel to London for the Virgin London Marathon on Sunday. Three special early morning trains to London Euston will be provided for Marathon customers:

05:50 Liverpool Lime Street, arriving London Euston 08:54 05:33 Manchester Piccadilly, arriving London Euston 08:27 06:20 Birmingham New Street, arriving London Euston 08:19

Notes for editors:

Virgin Trains is the brand name of Virgin Rail Group, which is owned 51 percent by Virgin Group and 49 percent by Stagecoach.

Virgin Trains has operated the West Coast passenger train franchise since 1997; the current franchise runs to March 2012.

This is the first year of a five year, GBP17m, sponsorship of the London Marathon by Virgin Money.

51,266 runners have had their applications to run in the marathon accepted.

The biggest fundraising event in the world, the London Marathon relies on the input of 6,000 volunteers and 1,500 St John ambulance volunteers.

Images of Virgin Trains and the company's operations are available in the Image Library on the online Media Room website where you can also subscribe to receive alerts to new press releases.

CONTACT: For further media information contact the Virgin Trains PressOffice on +44(0)845-000-3333 or visit our Media Room website athttp://www.virgintrains.co.uk/about/media-room/