Virgin Trains has celebrated its first birthday after taking over operations on the east coast route between London and Scotland in March last year.

One of the things we're really excited this year is the £21m refurbishment of our entire train fleet. This involves ripping out old seat covers and carpets, a deep clean of the interiors and installing new lighting, kitchens, bathrooms and upholstery, including leather seat covers in First Class compartments. A lot of this work is taking place at the Craigentinny depot in Edinburgh, where the “125” fleet is being refurbished.

We’ve pulled together a short video showing highlights of this, which can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_yhbeyZgXw. There’s also a timelapse video showing the exterior refresh of the trains last year, which can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1bcuWglugA.

There have been lots of other improvements on the east coast route, from a direct early-morning Stirling-London service, new uniforms, catering innovations such as Prosecco & “Hop on Board” ale. And there are a whole lot more improvements in the pipeline, including refurbished First Class Lounges in April, more Edinburgh-London services in May, bean-to-cup coffee machines onboard and a new fleet of faster, greener trains introduced from 2018.