Main line • Intercity • Great-Britain • Avanti West Coast

Note: this page is for educational purposes only. It is not a substitute for the official page of the operating company or manufacturer. 

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In brief

Regular routes
➤ Route A London Euston – Birmingham – Crewe / Manchester / Carlisle – Glasgow / Carlisle – Edinburgh / Blackpool
➤ Route B London Euston – Birmingham
➤ Route C London Euston – Tamworth – Crewe – Wrexham / Holyhead
➤ Route D London Euston – Tamworth – Crewe – Liverpool Lime Street
➤ Route E London Euston – Tamworth – Crewe / Stoke-on-Trent – Manchester
➤ Route F London Euston – Tamworth – Crewe – Preston – Carlisle – Glasgow / Preston – Blackpool

Rolling stock (past and present)

Class 390 Pendolino
Gec Alsthom
2000 – …

The Class 390 Pendolino trains are leased to Angel Trains. They use Fiat Ferroviaria’s tilting technology and were originally built by Alstom for Virgin, which owned the West Coast franchise. AWC has logically taken over the 53 units of nine or eleven cars, which are the fastest trainsets in Great Britain apart from Eurostar’s e320s.

Class 805 Evero
Hitachi
2024 – …

The Class 805 Evero is a type of dual-mode multiple unit built by Hitachi Rail for Avanti West Coast. Based on Hitachi’s A-train design, 13 five-car trainsets have been built to replace Class 221s on services between London Euston, Birmingham New Street and stations on the North Wales coast lines.

Birth of the enterprise

Virgin Trains Era (1997–2019):
Virgin Trains operated the West Coast Main Line for over 20 years, starting in 1997. Under a franchise agreement with the UK government, Virgin provided services connecting London with cities like Birmingham, Manchester, Glasgow, and Liverpool. Their tenure was marked by investments in modern trains and high-speed services (like the Pendolino tilting trains) and infrastructure improvements on one of the UK’s busiest routes.

The partnership between FirstGroup and Trenitalia began when the UK Department for Transport (DfT) announced the competition for the West Coast Partnership franchise in 2017. The aim of this partnership was to respond to various calls for tenders, not just the West Coast franchise.

The arrival of Trenitalia, which may have seemed surprising at the time, was in fact part of a well-defined strategy on the part of the Italian operator. Trenitalia is Italy’s primary train operator and is part of the state-owned Ferrovie dello Stato Italiane (FS) Group, Italy’s national railway company. It operates high-speed, regional, and international train services across Italy and beyond. In recent years, Trenitalia has expanded its operations in Greece, aiming to enter new markets across Europe. More recently, she begins operations in France on the Paris-Lyon-Milan route and in Spain under the name Iryo. Their involvement in the UK rail sector through Avanti West Coast was therefore part of this broader international expansion strategy.

This new consortium operator arrived at a time when questions were being asked about British rail policy. Fewer and fewer candidates were applying for tenders, and some, such as National Express, had even stopped to answer altogether.

Virgin Rail was almost certain to be the beneficiary of the new franchise, the UK government awarded in August 2019 the West Coast Partnership franchise to the FirstGroup-Trenitalia consortium, under the brand Avanti West Coast. The name “Avanti” reflects the forward-looking aspirations of the partnership, with “Avanti” meaning “forward” in Italian, symbolising progress and innovation. 🟧

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