UK East Coast Trains Nationalized?

Yes, it is due to be re-nationalised on 23rd June, because the current operator is effectively going bust. This was decided some weeks ago.

It is not true that "trains are no longer operating as of June 23". It will make no difference to the trains or tickets. It is purely a management change. No way do major train services just stop, changes of management company happen every few years, and normally the only difference is the name on the side of the trains. Compare it to an electricity or phone company going bust. Governments do not allow a public service like that to just stop, they just re-write the law so it keeps going.

VTEC operate trains on behalf of the Department for Transport under a contract franchise agreement. However, they could no longer meet their financial obligations, so the franchise will be terminated and operations fall back into to a company set up and owned by the DfT, viz LNER Ltd..

Everything gets transferred on the switchover date: tickets, reservations, even credit vouchers issued by VTEC. Plus of course the people, trains etc that deliver the service (trains are leased from another company anyway), apart from the senior management.

If you bought a separate ticket from VTEC and the Eurostar ticket from someone else they were always two separate journeys.

As a Brit in a similar situation (going to London pre nationalisation, returning after) I have had an e-mail from Virgin saying that all tickets will be honoured before and after the service goes into public hands. So hopefully we will all be OK - I've printed off my e-mail as back up proof though!

It's not the first time this has happened, as previously the line was run under the public (i.e. Government) ownership as East Coast Trains when the previous private company - GNER - folded. The plan is for the Virgin brand to be replaced by the LNER (London and North Eastern Railway) brand, which is what it was called way back in the sixties, pre Beeching cuts to the rail system. Plus ca change!

Hope your trip runs smoothly and that you have a great time. Hope my trip runs smoothly too!

Ian

Thanks everyone! Yea, I did hear everything will carry on as before, just hope it won’t be chaotic come June 24 and after...

Ian - let’s hope our trips go smoothly :)

Thanks for this post, I never looked into where else Eurostar goes, never occurred to me there was more to it than just London and Paris :)
https://www.eurostar.com/us-en/destinations

Could be several good options for me when I go to grad school in Sept. Thanks!
-Alison

Gee Alison must be a drastic change in being a grad student nowadays. I’d never been able to afford a Eurostar ticket when I was getting my Masters

We are used to franchise changes on the railway. It happens frequently, just happened to my company 5 months ago. On the east coast it is similar except they tend to keep giving the keys back (3 times now).

All we do is change the namebadge, the uniform, the name on posters and tickets restrictions, and a splash of paint or vinyl on the outside of the trains after a while.

My company, for example, hasn't even bothered to replace the uniform, and they took 2 months to get namebadges. As far as painting the trains, on my route they repainted one train and put little stickers on others, several weeks after the change.

Bottom line - there will be no chaos, don't worry, everything will be fine.

By the way, no body parts or organs at St Pancras.

Having seen the new LNER corporate identity, it looks like it was designed so they don't have to bother repainting the rolling stock and only have to whip off the Virgin logos and slap a new LNER decal over the top. Quite what they do about the interiors, signage, staff uniforms and badges is anybody's guess but I suspect it will be cheap and cheerful until they re flog the franchise off and leave it to the new owners to do a complete rebrand.

On June 24th, bar new senior management, to all intents and purposes nothing will have changed. I'm hanging on to that e-mail just in case though!

"Meet the new boss, same as the old boss..."

Ian

The 'new' LNER covers quite a lot less scope than the 'old' LNER (unlike say the 'new' GWR, which although not quite as big would be broadly recognisable in general shape to someone from the 1940s). It is to be a permanent brand.

If they were going for history it would be apple green power cars and the passenger carriages wrapped in vinyl imitation teak . Can't see that happening …

The old LNER didn't have that stellar a reputation for its services or for that matter making much money. The new LNER faces open access operators (plus other franchisees) along various parts of its route so doesn't have it all to itself. The present rising cost of fuel might actually help.

Re Alison - yea, do see where Eurostar goes, I thought they only went to Paris as well, which I already went to, but they also go to Amsterdam and Belgium :)
You may also get cheap tickets, I got mine for $84 USD return which I thought was a pretty good deal (just keep your times flexible)

So I guess the government has experience in this regard so hopefully everything goes smoothly...

Ian - you mentioned something about an email, is the email from Virgin East Coast? I never received any emails regarding the re-nationalization from them. Not sure if it's because they think everyone should know by now...

I may have got an e-mail from them for several reasons - I have an account with them and I'm from the UK, so maybe that's got something to do with it. It was in reality and in the best traditions of 'The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy' an e-mail which basically said 'Don't Panic'!

We have a piece of Privacy Protection issue legislation going through here in the UK (which is currently clogging up everybody's inbox) so I got one yesterday asking me if I wanted to continue to receive emails from them, which if OK'd presumably means they'll be able send me info about their other rail franchises and/or transfer me to the LNER database. There was a reminder there that tickets already booked will be valid for the LNER service as from June 24th.

I don't really see much to worry about. As previously stated above we've got previous 'form' on this front!

Ian

I don't have an account with VTEC - but do have one with Virgin Trains, who seemed somewhat more concerned to let me know they were still going to be in existence than anything else.

I got the "Stay Calm and Carry On" email from Virgin yesterday. For another company expecting to lose its franchise on the West Coast soon (have you seen the plain vanilla repaint?) it was trying ever so hard to put a brave face on.....

Not the East Coast at all, very much the opposite side of the country, it was announced today that a French/Spanish mashup have been given 15 years of the Wales train franchise - so not all of the changes lead to nationization by any measure....

Thanks everyone!

Nigel - is Virgin going to lose its west coastlines as well?

Ian - I see regarding the privacy legislation, we got them about a year back (I live in Canada), where companies email us asking us to opt-in to continue to receive their promotional emails...