Virgin Cross-Country

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A Class 220 Voyager at Bristol.

Virgin Cross-Country (VXC) is the branch of Virgin Trains that operates express train services all over Great Britain.

1 Routes
2 Trains
3 Future
4 See also

[edit] Routes

VT1: Penzance and Manchester Piccadilly to Edinburgh, Glasgow Central and Aberdeen.
VT2: Bournemouth, Brighton and Birmingham New Street to Manchester Piccadilly, Edinburgh, Glasgow and Aberdeen.
VT3: Penzance, Newquay, Paignton and Cardiff Central to Manchester Piccadilly, Newcastle, Edinburgh, Glasgow Central and Aberdeen.

[edit] Trains

The Cross-Country routes are operated by Class 220 Voyagers and Class 221 Super Voyagers. These were introduced to replace the thirty-year-old High Speed Train fleet that had been so successful at building passenger traffic on these routes. They also replaced the elderly Class 47s. The principal differences between the Voyager and Super Voyager fleet are that the Super Voyager usually consists of five carriages rather than the Voyager's four, and like the Pendolino can tilt when going around curves in order to allow higher speeds. This means that Super Voyager units have significantly more complex bogies than Voyagers.

[edit] Future

It has been announced [1] that the Cross Country franchise will finish in 2007 as part of a franchise reshuffle in the Midlands - The new franchise will include former Central Trains Citylink services, but the Manchester to Scotland service will be transferred to First TransPennine Express. Additionally, services to Guildford, Gatwick Airport and Brighton will cease.

The Department for Transport announced on 19 September 2006 that four parties had pre-qualified for the new franchise [2]: