The French state railway SNCF is to partner with Virgin Trains for a bid to run the first HS2 high-speed trains.
The competition for the West Coast Partnership franchise will pit the Virgin, Stagecoach and SNCF consortium against First Group and the Italian state-owned Trenitalia, with other potential bidders still to come forward.
The winner will run the existing intercity service on the main line from London to Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool and Glasgow from 2019, as well as the new high-speed services when they come into operation in about 2026.
The Department for Transport has stipulated that all bidders must have experience of running high-speed trains, which has obliged Virgin to bring SNCF on board. Stagecoach is taking a 50% share, SNCF 30% and Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin 20%.
The RMT, which has long argued the irony of Britain’s rail being contracted to private sector firms that are owned by foreign governments, denounced the news as a French “landgrab”.
The union’s general secretary, Mick Cash, said: “This is yet another landgrab on Britain’s railways by the French state with SNCF and Richard Branson both realising that this new franchise will be a one-way ticket to the bank for whoever comes out on top in this latest UK rail lottery.
“The integrated HS2/west coast operation has been bought and paid for by the British people and should be run by the British state in the public interest and not by some consortium of speculators looking to make a killing at the taxpayer’s expense.”
As well as representing a lucrative prize – Branson and Stagecoach have shared dividends worth more than £500m from the west coast service alone since 1997 – the contest will see First Group and Virgin square up in a repeat of the 2012 bidding war that derailed rail franchising in Britain.
First was briefly awarded the contract for the west coast franchise before a legal challenge from Virgin exposed flaws in the DfT’s process, leading to Branson and Stagecoach eventually retaining the service in a series of direct awards.
Virgin will hope that the addition of SNCF, which operates a fleet of 430 high-speed trains across Europe, will put it in pole position to retain its franchise and run the new HS2 services. First partner Trenitalia’s Italian network includes a spine served by Frecciarossa high-speed trains.
Martin Griffiths, the chief executive of Stagecoach, said: “This creates a powerful world-class partnership, bringing together the team which has transformed intercity rail travel in the UK with the most recognised and capable high-speed operator in Europe.”
Guillaume Pepy, the chairman of SNCF, said it would build on the French rail firm’s “longstanding commitment of working in partnership with British companies, using their local knowledge and sharing our expertise and experience”.
The first phase of the HS2 route to Birmingham is due to be up and running by 2026 and for a period after that trains will continue north on the existing west coast line, until the rest of the high-speed network is completed.
The shortlist of bidders will be confirmed in June, and the winner selected next year.
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