VIRGIN Trains has reacted strongly over a letter sent to West Coast MPs by rail minister Tom Harris in which he says he was not prepared to be ‘blackmailed’ over getting extra Pendolino coaches.

The Government has rejected a Virgin Trains plan to link the provision of 106 extra coaches for its 52-train fleet of Pendolinos with a two-year extension on their franchise from 2012.

The Department for Transport has now itself started a process to procure extra trains and coaches and to find an operator to project-manage the new build.

But Mr Harris has written to all MPs with a West Coast main line interest to clarify what happened.

He rejected any suggestion that the DfT had said no to extra Pendolinos, insisting that was not the case.

“We did say no to Virgin, to their proposal for what they called the two year extension to the franchise, which I perceived as being a new two-year franchise without any competition.

“And they could not convince me that that process would provide value for money, or better value for money, than an open contest.

“I was not prepared for the Department to be blackmailed with the prospect of Pendolino line-filling as the prize.”

But a Virgin Trains spokesman said: “We are extremely surprised at the use of this word by the Minister. We have been in a lot of dialogue with the Department and we will be looking for a meeting with him to see where things are going.

“Managing the whole process to install extra coaches would include depot extensions, reconfiguring the trains and all the commissioning work involved.

“In the last two years of our franchise we would expect to be in a steady state and as we would be taking on an enormous risk in doing all this work we asked for a relatively limited extension.”

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