West Coast rail franchise: Timeline of events

1997: Virgin Rail, a joint venture between Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Trains and Stagecoach, begins running the West Coast Main Line after being awarded a 15-year contract following the privatisation of UK’s railways.

2011: The Department for Transport (DfT) invites bids from companies interested in taking over the franchise when Virgin’s contract expires in December 2012. Dutch train operator Nederlandse Spoorwegen, Virgin and First West Coast, a subsidiary of the UK’s largest rail operator FirstGroup, enter the 15-month-long competition process. A joint bid from French transport group Keolis and the country’s national state-owned railway company SNCF is also received by the DfT.

15 August 2012: The DfT announces it intends to award the West Coast franchise to Aberdeen-based FirstGroup. More than 150,000 people sign an online petition calling for the decision to be reconsidered.

26 August 2012: Sir Richard offers to run the line “for free” to give parliament time to conduct a review into the procurement process. He said Virgin Trains and Stagecoach would run the service on a not-for-profit basis after December if MPs needed more time to look at the matter.

27 August 2012: Labour urges the UK government to delay signing the contract with FirstGroup until parliament reconvenes so the matter can be debated in the Commons. The DfT says there is “no reason” to delay the signing.

28 August 2012: Virgin starts High Court proceedings demanding a judicial review into the decision to hand the contract to FirstGroup. The then transport secretary Justine Greening, left, says the government will fight the legal challenge, with the DfT stating it was confident the competition process was robust.

3 October 2012: The DfT announces the decision to award the West Coast franchise to FirstGroup has been scrapped following the discovery of significant technical flaws in the procurement process.