More than a quarter of West Coast Scottish trains were late, while more than 15 per cent of West Coast North West and Virgin CrossCountry were late These did not include void days. The last bulletin showed reliability and punctuality fell below levels achieved by British Rail.They showed Virgin triggered discounts on three route groups. Other “voiders” included Central Trains with 48 days, Silverlink, the north London and Home Counties commuter service, with 39, and Great Western Trains with 27.The Transport minister Glenda Jackson said the Office of Passenger Rail Franchising (Opraf) would include the number of void days in its next quarterly bulletin of train performance, due in February. Its CrossCountry network of InterCity services, which do not go via London, declared 28 days void.Virgin said it had been affected by extremely poor weather, such as flooding in Scotland last Christmas and in the Midlands at Easter.Across the rail network a total of 343 days were declared void. But regulators are concerned the void-day rule means the performance tables do not give a proper guide to service levels.Figures published by the Department for the Environment, Transport and the Regions, showed that Virgin declared 148 days “void” over the 12 months to November 14.Its flagship West Coast main line from London to Glasgow contributed 120 of these days – 36 on its West Midlands routes, 37 on its North West Group and 47 for Scotland. The extent of delays and hold-ups on sections of its empire was so severe on these days that Virgin declared them “void” – which means they do not counted in government performance tables.

The tables are used to determine whether season-ticket holders are entitled to discounts because of poor service.
In exchange for this opt-out, the train company has to give monthly season- ticket holders a day’s extension or arrange similar compensation. VIRGIN TRAINS, the railway subsidiary of the ballooning billionaire Richard Branson, provided “no effective service” for a total of 148 days across different parts of the network over the past year. There was a time when Richard would show up to the opening of an envelope if he thought he’d get a headline.”. For a long time the group eschewed an advertising agency, preferring to generate free column inches and television coverage themselves.The publicity team is helped by public interest in Branson himself.

“People are interested in him,” says an insider who once worked in publicity for the Virgin empire. “But they have actually been trying to tone it down recently.”The balloon doesn’t have Virgin written on the side and he’s given up wearing wedding dresses and other stupid stunts. Being no mean slouches at publicity themselves, Downing Street swings into action to try to secure free passage.The publicity operation that is taking Branson around the world is led by his Virgin Group publicity guru, Jackie McQuillan. With Will Whitehorn, his long-time adviser, also at his side, Branson and Virgin have some of the most skilled publicity people in the business. Ducking and weaving like only a 272ft balloon can, he avoids Georgia and Iran.Without a trace of irony Mike Kendrick, the project director, declares on Sunday that there had been “an average of 2.6 crises a day” since the balloon launched: “It has been a difficult flight so far, but we are settling down a bit now.”But no, by yesterday morning the team has discovered it cannot fly over the bit of China it promised to and the Chinese are planning to refuse permission to fly any other way. Like Biggles cloned with Scott of the Antarctic, Branson now steers his balloon between not one but two “no fly zones”.