I find this bizarre as First are by far and away the best owning company I have worked for. I think too many have only ever worked under virgin and it's all they know and they assume it is best.
Whatever else, we know your views on Virgin.
Some of us have been on the railways since British Rail and gone through various changes since Privatisation.
I have to say from a personnel point of view, upto about 7 years ago Virgin/Stagecoach was the best company i had worked for since being on the railways, and that was more down to Virgin than Stagecoach that's for sure.
Didn't agree with everything they did and how they went about it but the public in general used to like the Virgin difference.
Trouble is again from my point of view everything has gone abit stale but that is more down to the delayed franchise process and the DfT.
Quite a lot of changes, i believe would have been happening on the West Coast, new trains, refurbishing existing stock, if there had been the right outright winner in 2012.
The West Coast Intercity franchise has been very successful in the years that Virgin have had it and yes they have made plenty of money for shareholders (that's franchising for you), whether some other owning company would have done as well is debatable.
Once again upto the last 7 years staff had generally been quite happy, and yes plenty of them are only there because it was Virgin. Nothing wrong with that in it's self as long as the main focus is still on rail transport and passenger satisfaction.
Have First made much of a success in any rail franchise they've been involved with. They wanted to give the keys back to GWR. SWR, TPE, both not doing great.