History
Virgin Rail Group was awarded the InterCity CrossCountry franchise in November 1996 with operations commencing on 5 January 1997.
In October 1998 Virgin Group sold 49% of the shares in Virgin Rail Group to Stagecoach.
In the wake of the collapse of Railtrack and the inability of Network Rail to deliver on the 140 mph West Coast Main Line upgrade, both the Virgin CrossCountry and Virgin West Coast franchises were suspended in favour of management contracts in July 2002.
Read more about this topic: Virgin CrossCountry
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