The contract expired on 7 December 2019 (having been originally scheduled for expiry in March 2020) and Virgin did not contest losing the franchise after its joint venture partner, Stagecoach, was disqualified due to an invalid bid in April 2019.

[11][12] Railtrack would ultimately collapse while its successor, Network Rail, would also be unable to fully deliver the promised upgrade, heavily impacting Virgin West Coast's operations.

[19] In May 2011, the Secretary of State for Transport announced that the end date had been postponed to allow the recommendations in the McNulty Report to be absorbed.

[21] An Invitation to tender was issued to the shortlisted bidders in January 2012,[22] and the Department for Transport awarded FirstGroup the new franchise in August 2012.

Virgin Rail Group responded to this by offering a voucher worth £20 to allow employees to purchase a top to wear underneath the new blouses.

[33] In July 2013, the Office of Rail Regulation rejected an application by Virgin Trains to operate new services to Shrewsbury and Blackpool North, citing capacity constraints on the West Coast Main Line.

[51] In December 2008, a Wrexham General to London Euston service was introduced, operating south in the morning with an evening return.

[54] From January 2009, Virgin Trains gradually rolled out a new "very high frequency" timetable to take advantage of the completed West Coast Main Line upgrade.

Virgin Trains suffered poor punctuality compared with some other transport operators between 2001 and 2006, according to Office of Rail Regulation statistics.

Punctuality did gradually improve until the introduction of a new timetable (in December 2008), following the upgrade of the West Coast Main Line, which resulted in a dip in performance.

[58] Performance subsequently recovered and peaked during 2010–11, but then fell again and reached a new low for the year ending 31 March 2013 of 83.6% (MAA).

[59] The PPM MAA (Public performance measure Moving Annual Average - % of trains arriving within 10 minutes of the scheduled times) figures for Virgin Trains are as follows: Latest figures published by Network Rail for the seventh period of 2013-2014 recorded PPM of 92.2% for the period and a MAA of 83.5% for the 12 months up to 12 October 2013.

Network Rail was itself directly responsible for 50% of Virgin Trains' delays, 20% were a result of external factors (e.g. fatalities) and the final 14% were due to other operators.

In 1999 Virgin signed a deal to lease forty-four eight-carriage and nine nine-carriage Class 390 Pendolinos built by Alstom.

[79][full citation needed] To operate the Holyhead services four four-carriage Class 221 Super Voyagers were included in the order placed by Virgin CrossCountry.

[84][full citation needed] After it was decided they would operate daily services along the North Wales Coast to Holyhead, another four were ordered from Porterbrook.

[85][full citation needed] Following the completion of the West Coast Main Line upgrade in 2008 their use fell and after being sublet to Arriva Trains Wales, Colas Rail and First GBRf, six were returned to Porterbrook in August 2011,[86] three in April 2012[87] and the remaining seven in December 2012.

Virgin had long been angling for a franchise extension in return for ordering extra carriages for the Class 390 Pendolinos.

In 2008 Virgin looked at leasing two Class 180[90][full citation needed] but decided to retain the Mark 3 set.

[91] Virgin used this set with a Class 90 locomotive hired from Freightliner on a Euston to Crewe (via Birmingham) service on Fridays only until December 2012.

From 9 December 2013 it was utilised to operate a London Euston-Birmingham New Street train on Thursdays and Fridays only, until its withdrawal in October 2014.

[96] On 15 September 2015 it was announced that Virgin Trains were to rename Pendolino 390002 in memory of teenage fundraiser Stephen Sutton.

[97] Former units operated by Virgin Trains include: The Class 390 fleet was allocated to the Alstom Traincare Centre at Longsight with lighter maintenance and overnight servicing carried out at Wembley, Oxley, Edge Hill and Polmadie depots.

The Class 221 fleet was allocated to Bombardier's Central Rivers depot with lighter maintenance and overnight servicing carried out at Arriva TrainCare, Crewe, Holyhead and Polmadie.

[106] In July 2016 the integrated infotainment system BEAM was provided on all trains by GoMedia, delivered directly to the passenger's own devices including mobile phones and tablets.

In November 2019, Virgin Trains submitted an open access operator application to the Office of Rail and Road (ORR) for paths to run trains from London Euston to Liverpool Lime Street with Class 221s once they were released by Avanti West Coast with services to begin in December 2022.