VIRGIN Rail Group is investigating the opportunities offered by the high speed rail market in Spain, after its bid with Stagecoach and SNCF for West Coast Partnership was disqualified by the Department for Transport in April amid disagreements over the amount of risk franchise-holders are expected to take, particularly in relation to pensions.

Some Virgin executives have just returned from a trip to Spain, where they researched the possibilities which the forthcoming liberalisation of the high speed network will offer. Open access operators are expected to compete with the state operator Renfe on high speed routes from December 2020.

A number of Spanish and overseas operators are reported to have expressed an interest, while infrastructure owner Adif will be obliged to meet all requests for paths within the available capacity.

Virgin Group senior partner Patrick McCall said: ‘We’ve always been passionate about delivering the best customer experience and have revolutionised UK rail over the last 22 years; bringing in faster and more frequent services, industry-leading technology and the highest customer satisfaction rates.

‘Unfortunately the UK is fast-becoming uninvestable from a rail franchise perspective, because of the UK government’s decision to load unacceptable risk on to bidders. We welcome the liberalisation of the Spanish rail market, where we hope competition will be allowed to flourish and the best operators will be able to drive significant improvements in customer service. We are currently considering our options.’

Virgin has applied to run an hourly open access service between Liverpool and London, but will cease to run franchised services on the West Coast Main Line by next March at the latest.