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Avanti West Coast NRC
FirstGroup/Trenitalia
***UPDATE*** The Labour Government elected on 4 July 2024 announced that all National Rail Contracts would be terminated and run by the Department for Transport’s Operator of Last Resort (now DfT Operator Limited) until Great British Railways could take over.
Each contract would be terminated when it expired or at the first available break point (which may be the ‘core expiry date’), and possibly sooner in the event of a breach of contract by the operator.
The potential termination date of this operator’s contract is not yet decided.
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Avanti West Coast NRC National Rail Contract

replaced < Avanti West Coast
to be replaced by (Great British Railways)
start date 15 October 2023 end date not decided
owned by FirstGroup/Trenitalia
legal title First Trenitalia West Coast Rail Limited
description A new National Rail Contract was awarded to FirstGroup (70%) and Trenitalia (30%) on 19 September 2023, to start on 15 October 2023.
This replaced the previous short term contract which had been awarded in March 2023 after Avanti West Coast had been affected by performance problems and high cancellation figures. It was the second short-term contract to be allowed while Avanti recovered.
The present contract was to run for at least three years until 18 October 2026 and possibly up to nine, until October 2032, although the transport secretary would have been able to end the contract at any time during the six-year extension period by giving three months’ notice.
On 20 March 2024 the Board of Transport for the North called for the contract to be terminated.
The government confirmed on 4 December 2024 that it expected to terminate this contract at a future date after October 2026 which had yet to be decided, when it would return to public ownership after the operator had been given notice of not less than twelve weeks.
service area Long distance services: London Euston-Rugby-(Trent Valley)/Coventry/Birmingham New Street and Wolverhampton/Stoke-on-Trent-Crewe-Chester-Wrexham Manchester Piccadilly/Liverpool Lime Street/Holyhead/Glasgow Central/Edinburgh. London Euston-Blackpool North, London Euston-Shrewsbury (until 1 June 2024). Projected High Speed services (HS2): (London Euston)-Old Oak Common-Birmingham International-Birmingham Curzon Street

2023-09-19 > New contracts for Avanti West Coast and CrossCountry 2023-03-20 > Avanti West Coast wins last minute contract extension 2019-12-09 > New Avanti franchise launches on West Coast
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