No, clearly they didn't, but the fact that there's a Scotrail 156 (every few hours) taking roughly 2h20 is pretty irrelevant compared to the 185s/ Voyagers/ Pendolini doing the journey in roughly 1h10.
How come people are getting so excited about Glasgow - Carlisle being a significant market that needs competition when clearly there's no competition on routes like London - Swindon/ Oxford/ Northampton/ Manchester/ Ipswich? Storm in a tea cup.
Swindon - population 209,000
Oxford - population 151,900
Northampton - population 212,100
Manchester - population 503,000
Ipswich - population 138,718
GLASGOW - 598,830
The five places you mentioned are all less populated than one of britains largest cities....
My argument isnt to do with direct trains either... London to Manchester for example could be done via WCML to Stafford then XC from Stafford to Manchester...
In Scotland unless you want to travel via Edinburgh & Newcastle adding hours onto your journey the only option you will have is to use one of the three franchises ran by First...
I personally dont care who runs what franchise but to allow one company to effectively own all services ran on a particular part of the WCML is in my opinion not in the interests of the paying public... Living on the West Coast and with Scotrail & TPE in the equation then each time someone heads south over the border they are lining the pockets of First... its not just about Glasgow - London...