VIRGIN Trains could run London to Scotland train services for "several years" on a not-for-profit basis if its offer is taken up by the Department for Transport (DfT).
The company, which is 49% owned by Stagecoach, has been given legal advice that running the West Coast route under a temporary management contract would not leave the UK Government open to being sued by FirstGroup, The Herald understands.
A source familiar with the discussions claimed this had put Virgin in a stronger position to continue operating trains after December 9, when its existing contract expires, though DfT lawyers were said to still be forming their opinion on the issue.
First was due to take over the cross-border route as part of a £13 billion deal which was cancelled last Wednesday after errors by the DfT were discovered in the bidding process.
The Aberdeen-based company, which had £244m wiped off its share value, is considering whether to sue the DfT for loss of earnings, either from having its contract cancelled or seeing the service pass to Virgin.
The industry source said an extension to Virgin's contract was unlikely to be short term, given that a new contest will have to wait until a review of the DfT's entire franchising process is completed by the end of the year.
Virgin has been pushing the DfT to extend its contract to run the services, either on a not-for-profit basis or with profits being handed to a charity.
The other option is for Directly Operated Railways (DOR), a company set up by the DfT to take over East Coast train services in 2009, to run the West Coast route.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article