As you may have seen in the mainstream media, Richard Branson and Virgin Trains have launched a legal challenge against the decision to award the West Coast Main Line franchise to First Group. The government have signaled their intention to fight the challenge, despite Virgin's ePetition gaining over 160,000 signatures.
Virgin, along with a number of railway insiders point to the fact that the First deal sees payments back to the treasury start very low, but ramp up dramatically towards the end of the franchise period, by which time a failure of the franchise (which seems inevitable given the sums of money involved), would likely be another government's problem.
Virgin may be quietly pleased though to see Justine Greening, the Transport Minister who over-saw the selection of First Group, ousted from her post in yesterday's Cabinet "re-shuffle". Patrick McLoughlin will replace Ms Greening. The move has been widely seen as a step towards the possibility of expansion of Heathrow Airport, but it may also make a U-turn on the WCML deal just a little less politically embarrassing.
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