Virgin Trains’ gives cycling to work a boost

Virgin Train is now providing 40 more cycle storage points at Stockport station. Funded through Cycle England, there are 20 cycle points now provided on the Manchester-end of both platforms 1 and 3.

To promote the enhanced facilities at Stockport the station team will be giving away free tickets free travel tickets during National Cycle Week. On each day between Monday 20 June and Friday 24 June free rail tickets will be offered to the first cyclist each day who uses the new facilities and visits the Customer Service Office on Platform 1.

Virgin Trains Station Manager at Stockport Lesley Ross said: “More and more people are choosing to cycle to the station as part of their journey to work. Virgin Trains is delighted to be able to provide additional facilities for cyclists and play its part in promoting environmentally-friendly travel alternatives .”

In addition to the new spaces at Stockport, passengers travelling to Stoke-on-Trent are also able to hire a folding bike from Stoke-on-Trent station to use at the other end of their journey.

Virgin Trains’ Pendolino electric trains used on the Manchester-Stockport-London route are also environmentally-friendly.

The state-of-the-art 125mph Pendolino trains emit on average 76% less carbon dioxide per seat than domestic airlines and are also saving energy and reducing pollution as they return energy to the electrical feeder stations every time they brake. The 52 tilting trains, designed, built and maintained by Alstom, are fitted with electronic control systems that cause the traction motors to provide braking effort by generating electricity back into the supply system. The generated electricity which is put back into the supply system achieves an overall energy saving of around 15% percent.

Regenerative braking used on the Pendolino trains also reduces the use of the friction brakes, dramatically reducing brake-pad dust and pollution, to provide a double environmental benefit.

The 52-strong Pendolino fleet is now covering 16.8 million miles a year meaning that each train is covering a million miles in little more than three years. Over 28-and-a-half million passenger journeys are now made with Virgin Trains every year, up from 14 million a year just six years ago. In a year Virgin Trains carries the equivalent of over ten times the population of Greater Manchester (2.6 million).


ENDS

Notes to Editors

Visit our Media Room website - www.virgintrains.co.uk/about/media-room/ - for an Image Library of pictures of Virgin Trains and the company’s operations, or to subscribe to receive alerts to new press releases.

Virgin Trains is the brand name of Virgin Rail Group (VRG), which is owned 51 percent by Virgin Group and 49 percent by Stagecoach. We have operated the West Coast passenger train franchise since 1997.

The current franchise runs to March 2012 and the Secretary of State for Transport announced on 19 May 2011 that the Department for Transport will seek to agree acceptable terms with VRG for an extension to the current contract to December 2012. We have been short-listed for the new franchise that will start in December 2012.

Virgin Trains has been recognised in numerous industry awards. In 2010 the company has been named Best Rail Operator of the Year at the Travel Globe Awards (voted for by readers of the Daily Mail, Mail on Sunday and Evening Standard), and Best Rail Operator in the Group Leisure Awards (which we also won in 2009). In 2009 we were also voted Best UK Domestic Train Service by Business Traveller magazine for the second year running.

Virgin Trains first achieved Investors In People accreditation in 2007 and this was renewed in 2010; the IIP Gold award was achieved in 2011. In May 2011 Virgin Trains was awarded accreditation against the criteria of the European Foundation for Quality Management's (EFQM) Excellence Model.