9 Jul, 2019 @ 11:49
1 min read

British giant Virgin Trains eyes up moving into Spain market after UK becomes ‘uninvestable’

VIRGIN Trains has revealed it is eyeing up Spain’s railways after being disqualified from bidding for new British contracts.

It comes after the Spanish government announced it would be opening up its high-speed train network to bring competition to the state-backed Renfe from December 2020.

Virgin Trains was banned from bidding for the HS2 line between London and Birmingham this year while its partner Stagecoach was barred from East Midlands Trains and Southeastern tenders over its failure to quantify future pension risks.

Patrick McCall, Virgin Group’s senior managing director, confirmed the company has declared interest in Spain.

“We’ve revolutionised UK rail over the last 22 years,” he said.

“Unfortunately the UK is fast becoming uninvestable from a rail franchise perspective because of the UK government’s decision to load unacceptable risk on to bidders.

“We welcome the liberalisation of the Spanish rail market, where we hope competition will be allowed to flourish.”

Virgin will battle Deutsche Bahn, SNCF, of France and Trenitalia for the Spain contract.

Other companies vying for the deal could include National Express, which has quit the British rail market but is a big player in the Spanish bus and coach market.

Laurence Dollimore

Laurence Dollimore is a Spanish-speaking, NCTJ-trained journalist with almost a decade’s worth of experience.
The London native has a BA in International Relations from the University of Leeds and and an MA in the same subject from Queen Mary University London.
He earned his gold star diploma in multimedia journalism at the prestigious News Associates in London in 2016, before immediately joining the Olive Press at their offices on the Costa del Sol.
After a five-year stint, Laurence returned to the UK to work as a senior reporter at the Mail Online, where he remained for two years before coming back to the Olive Press as Digital Editor in 2023.
He continues to work for the biggest newspapers in the UK, who hire him to investigate and report on stories in Spain.
These include the Daily Mail, Telegraph, Mail Online, Mail on Sunday and The Sun and Sun Online.
He has broken world exclusives on everything from the Madeleine McCann case to the anti-tourism movement in Tenerife.

GOT A STORY? Contact newsdesk@theolivepress.es or call +34 951 273 575 Twitter: @olivepress

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