Lord Percy
I've been keeping my eye on the Grand Central recruitment page myself as they are due to commence a service on the west coast mainline between London and Blackpool next March so hopefully they may be creating new jobs in the near future. The current vacancies they have seem to be for experienced staff already employed on the railways.
However, I don't know if today's news about the Virgin franchise going to the First Trenitalia group will impact on the who runs the services in the North West along the west coast mainline. I can't say too much about Grand Central but they are run by the Arriva group who also operate Northern and a few other TOCs across the UK.
C J