Virgin CrossCountry^[1] was a train operating company in the United Kingdom that operated the InterCity CrossCountry passenger franchise from January 1997 until November 2007. Along with the InterCity West Coast^[2] franchise held by a separate legal entity, the company traded under the Virgin Trains brand.

Operations commenced on 5 January 1997 as part of the privatisation of British Rail. Originally scheduled to run for 15 years, the franchise was suspended in favour of a management contract in July 2002. The government opted to retender the CrossCountry franchise during the late 2000s and services were transferred over to Arriva-owned CrossCountry on 11 November 2007.

Virgin CrossCountry operated some of the longest direct rail services in the United Kingdom, but most avoided Greater London entirely as a result of changes in 2003. All of its services called, or terminated, at Birmingham New Street. Multiple service reorganisations, such as Project Princess and Project Omega, were implemented by the company. In order to replace its British Rail-era rolling stock, the company introduced Class 220 Voyagers and Class 221 Super Voyagers.

Amid the privatisation of British Rail during the mid 1990s, the newly-formed Virgin Rail Group submitted multiple bids to operate several different train franchises, including Gatwick Express, InterCity CrossCountry and InterCity West Coast.^[3] It was successful in winning the latter two, both scheduled to run for 15 years, leading to the creation of Virgin CrossCountry and Virgin West Coast:^[4][5] During November 1996, it was announced that Virgin had been awarded the InterCity CrossCountry franchise.^[6] Services were operated by a wholly owned subsidiary, CrossCountry Trains Limited.^[7] The company commenced operations on 5 January 1997.

In October 1998, Virgin Group sold 49% of the shares in Virgin Rail Group to Stagecoach.^[8]

Virgin sought to introduce new tilting trains upon some of its services; however, their introduction was repeatedly delayed as a consequence of poor project management by the national railway infrastructure owner of the era, Railtrack.^[9] Infrastructure changes were required to make effective use of tilting trains and, while Railtrack had committed itself to performing such upgrades on the West Coast Main Line as to permit 140 mph operation by 2005, the modernisation programme soon suffered from spiralling costs,^[10] as well as technical failures such as the moving block signalling apparatus sought being immature for the intended use at that time.^[11] Railtrack would ultimately collapse in 2002 while its successor, Network Rail, would also be unable to fully deliver the promised upgrade, heavily impacting Virgin's operations.^[12][13]

In the wake of the collapse of Railtrack and the inability of Network Rail to fully deliver on promised improvements, both the Virgin CrossCountry and Virgin West Coast franchises were suspended in favour of management contracts in July 2002.^[14][15][16] While the terms of the West Coast franchise were renegotiated, an agreement could not be reached on CrossCountry, and it was thus retendered during the late 2000s. Virgin Trains were keen to retain the franchise, and submitted a bid in response along with several other interested parties.^[17]

During September 2006, the Department for Transport announced the shortlist for the New CrossCountry franchise, which included Virgin Rail Group.^[18] In October 2006, the DfT issued the invitation to tender (ITT) to the four shortlisted bidders: Arriva, FirstGroup, National Express and Virgin Rail Group.^[19] On 10 July 2007, the Department for Transport awarded the new CrossCountry franchise to Arriva; accordingly, the services operated by Virgin CrossCountry were transferred over to the newly created operator, named CrossCountry, on 11 November 2007.^[20][21]

In May 1998, Virgin introduced new services from Portsmouth Harbour to Liverpool Lime Street and Blackpool North. The Summer Saturday service to Ramsgate ran for the last time in September 1999.^[22] The Summer Saturday services to Weymouth ran for the last time in September 2002.^{[23][full citation needed]}

Virgin CrossCountry inherited a fleet of Class 47 and Class 86 locomotives, Mark 2 Carriages, High Speed Trains and Class 158 Express Sprinter diesel multiple units from British Rail. Class 47s on hire from English Welsh & Scottish and Fragonset were also fairly common.

A franchise commitment was the replacement of these trains with new stock. In December 1998 Virgin signed a deal to lease 78 Voyager diesel–electric multiple units built by Bombardier Transportation, consisting of 34 four-carriage Class 220 Voyagers and 40 five-carriage and four four-carriage Class 221 Super Voyagers.^[31] The Super Voyagers were built with tilting mechanisms to enable higher speeds on curved tracks, including on the West Coast Main Line and between Oxford and Banbury.^{[32][full citation needed]} The four-carriage Super Voyagers were intended for use by Virgin West Coast on services from London Euston to Holyhead, although they ended up being pooled with the other Voyagers. When Virgin West Coast started using Super Voyagers on Holyhead services in September 2004, the five-carriage units were used.

The first Class 220 Voyager arrived from Belgium in January 2001 and entered service on 21 May 2001.^[33] The last Class 47s, Class 86s and Mark 2 carriages were withdrawn in August 2002, while the Express Sprinters were transferred to Wessex Trains and First TransPennine Express.

After experiencing rapid growth Virgin CrossCountry decided to retain some High Speed Train sets. During December 2001, it announced plans to refurbish eight HSTs as Virgin Challengers for use on proposed services from London Paddington to Manchester Piccadilly via Cheltenham, with the option to refurbish more.^{[34][full citation needed]} In the wake of the collapse of Operation Princess,^[35] the project was cancelled with the remaining HSTs withdrawn in September 2003 on the instruction of the Strategic Rail Authority.^[36]

To provide extra stock for services on summer Saturday services to Paignton and Newquay, Virgin CrossCountry hired HSTs from Virgin West Coast, Midland Mainline and Great North Eastern Railway (GNER),^[37] and Mark 3B loco-hauled carriages from Virgin West Coast. In 2004, Virgin hired Class 67 locomotives from EWS and Mark 2 carriages from Riviera Trains to operate summer Saturday services to Paignton.^[38]

A standby set of Mark 2 carriages was leased from Riviera Trains from September 2004.^[39] This set was usually used with an EWS Class 90 locomotive between Birmingham New Street and Manchester Piccadilly, although it did run to Newcastle with a Class 57/3 in January 2007.

HSTs were hired from Midland Mainline and GNER on a number of occasions to operate services from Edinburgh Waverley to Plymouth when Voyagers were unavailable.

• Passenger rail franchising in Great Britain
• Cross Country Route