Triple tilt on west coast delay

Sir Richard Branson plans to use today's launch of Virgin Rail's pendolino tilting trains to attack the government, Railtrack and strategic rail authority for continued delays to the west coast line upgrade.

Yesterday Stagecoach, the Perth-based minority partner in Virgin Rail, said the train operator had received £90m in compensation from Railtrack, an interim payment towards any settlement of the long-running dispute.

In a trading statement, Stagecoach said Virgin Rail, which will lose £70m in government subsidy this year, was trading profitably but needed "significant revenue growth" through new trains on the west coast line. An upgrade to enable trains to run at 140mph by 2005 was far off schedule. "It is therefore essential that a satisfactory conclusion is reached to current negotiations on amendments to the... project."

Pretax profits for the year were on track for analysts' expectations of £95-100m, down from £122.9m last year, after strikes at South West Trains and poor trading at the US unit, Coach. Six days of strikes cost Stagecoach £9m in operating profits, while Coach's second-half earnings were likely to be down by £12m-£15m.