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National Express awarded contract to operate services on major UK rail route

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Tuesday, August 14, 2007

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NXEC Trains Ltd, a subsidiary of National Express Group, has been awarded the contract to run the InterCity East Coast franchise and operate intercity rail services on the East Coast Main Line, a high-speed route connecting London with the north-east of England and Scotland. The company, which is to brand the service as National Express East Coast, will take over the franchise from the current operator Great North Eastern Railway (GNER) from December 9, 2007.

GNER's contract was initially due to run until 2015 but was terminated early by the Department for Transport after its parent company, Sea Containers Ltd, found itself in financial difficulties which meant it was unable to pay the £1.3 billion it had promised in its bid to run the service.

A number of other bids were made for the franchise. These were from Arriva, FirstGroup, and a partnership of Stagecoach, Virgin, and GNER.

Richard Bowker, chief executive of National Express Group, said, "We are absolutely delighted that we have won the UK’s premier intercity railway. We have won with a bid which is ambitious, deliverable and structured to generate shareholder value."

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This page is archived, and is no longer publicly editable.
Articles presented on Wikinews reflect the specific time at which they were written and published, and do not attempt to encompass events or knowledge which occur or become known after their publication.

Got a correction? Add the template {{editprotected}} to the talk page along with your corrections, and it will be brought to the attention of the administrators.

Please note that due to our archival policy, we will not alter or update the content of articles that are archived, but will only accept requests to make grammatical and formatting corrections.

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