Go-faster stripes
MY railway correspondent, I.K. Gricer, dives for my copy of Tom Bower's Branson. Yes, he says, the Eurostar story has been going round the inner circle. Virgin was part of the London & Continental consortium, which was supposed to run the trains and build the railway linking London to the Channel Tunnel — though, as my corre- spondent observes, not a sod was turned, except in the board meetings. Richard Branson at once insisted that the business should be renamed Virgin Eurostar, and the trains repainted to match. Good marketing, he said. His partners thought not, and called his bluff when he threatened to pull out. They had spotted the catch: 'Eventually, he agreed, Eurostar would be charged a licence fee for using the Virgin brand.' In this way, Virgin could make money even if the trains did not. No wonder that Virgin went on to pick up two railway franchises, complete with red and white striped trains. My corre- spondent hopes to spot a red and white striped Virgin People's Lottery.
Previous page
