"...progressively unreliable loco-hauled fleet..."

As part of the Virgin Group gearing up for the re-franchising process - which may include a bid for the 15 year Greater Anglia franchise due in 2015 - Sir Richard Branson has been speaking about the success the group has made of the West Coast Mainline.

Sir Richard was speaking on the day Virgin celebrated the carriage of its 30 millionth passenger this year, and he highlighted the strong growth of the business over the past 14 years, which included the introduction of the Pendolino sets replacing the ageing and progressively unreliable loco-hauled fleet.

The ageing and progressively unreliable loco-hauled fleet to which he refers is of course the fleet that moved over to run trains between London and Norwich some six or seven years ago and that we still enjoy to this day.  One day we might get new trains running our Inter City service rather than somebody else's "ageing and progressively unreliable" hand-me-downs.