Virgin Trains has broken new records for passengers travelling between the North West and London.

As we celebrate 21 years of operating the west coast route, new figures show we carried over 10.2m customers on our Manchester route in 2017/18, an increase of 2.9% compared to the same period the previous year. Our routes to Liverpool (3.7m) and Chester/North Wales (1.5m) also saw growth of 0.5% and 3.8% respectively at a time when numbers using rail elsewhere fell for the first time in over two decades.

Gaynor Stewart, Virgin Trains’ General Manager for North West and Wales services, said: “The North West is an integral part of our west coast route, a region we have been proud to serve for the past 21 years. In that time journey times have been slashed and service innovations such as BEAM, improved punctuality and more availability of low fares have helped drive strong customer satisfaction ratings and attract more people to rail."