It said that if it wins the franchise, all journeys on the line will be speeded up by 2005 and capacity will be increased by 40 per cent. Capacity will increase by a further 12 per cent from 2007, while £47m will be spent on car parks and station improvements.Sir Richard said that while tilting trains would enhance journey times on his existing west coast route franchise because of the number of bends on the line, GNER’s plan to use them for the east coast franchise would do little to increase speed because it was a relatively straight track. Virgin said it planned to rebuild the existing fleet of electric trains, to be called Virgin Vitesse. Diesel locomotives will be added to the services so they can operate over both electrified and non-electrified lines.

It is predicted that the increased acceleration the locomotives provide will lead to improve journey timesNew services are planned to key centres such as Lincoln, Sheffield and the eastern counties, and more through trains would run between London and Aberdeen and Inverness.If the high-speed line goes ahead, apart from the reduction in journey times Virgin would intend to run four trains an hour rather than the present maximum of two trains an hour. The London-Newcastle journey would come down from two hours 56 minutes to one hour 59 minutes, with five trains an hour, the company said. It is also committing £47m to deal with “priority east coast blackspots” at Newcastle and Doncaster.Subject to a shadow Strategic Rail Authority decision by December 2001, the high-speed line could be constructed and operational by 2009. Line speed would be around 205mph.New stations would be provided at or near Peterborough, Doncaster, and Washington, Tyne and Wear. New services from May 2009 would include London-Lincoln, London-Stamford and Melton Mowbray, Newcastle-Cambridge/Stansted, Edinburgh-Nottingham/Leicester, London-Barnsley (Hemsworth parkway), London-Knottingley/Pontefract, with commitments to study further additional services to Halifax and Grimsby.Will Whitehorn, group strategy director for the Virgin Group, claimed that there was widespread support throughout the industry for his company’s strategy.

“We remain committed to the high-speed line, but our proposals for the first years of the franchise would bring down journey times and increase the number of trains running.”And he defended Virgin’s record on the west coast line, saying: “Punctuality on the west coast has improved dramatically over the last 12 months. We took over one of the worst sections of railway in the old UK system, and have turned it round.”Christopher Garnett, chief executive of GNER acknowledged that he did not have the same problems as his rival: “When we took on this franchise four years ago, some people felt we had inherited the cream of the British rail crop It is satisfying … to be able to look back on the last four years and see how we have made a relatively good service much better.”The ball is firmly in Sir Alastair’s court.. The Tories launched a scathing attack on the Government’s reliance on spin-doctors last night, claiming that they had treated new guidelines on their role with “arrogant disdain”.