It’s been another busy three months here at Virgin Trains East Coast, with further improvements and exciting plans well underway.

May saw us add even more services to our timetable, and I’m delighted that we now offer passengers a half-hourly service between London and Leeds six days a week, ahead of the Azuma launch. It’s exciting to see Hitachi begin working on our new fleet at their Newton Aycliffe depot, which will add even more seats to our services.

With our fleet refurbishment complete, including rolling out our upgraded Wi-Fi and BEAM to our Hull - London service, we’ve now turned our attention to how we can innovate to improve our rail services. I look forward to working with the start-ups chosen through our Platform X venture to tackle some of the challenges we face, and to our new website and app which we’ll be launching soon.

Finally, on behalf of Virgin Trains East Coast, I would like to extend our congratulations and a warm welcome to all the new and re-elected MPs, Councillors, and Mayors on our route. We look forward to working with you to make our services as best as they can be for all the passengers that you represent.