First of all, Mr Branson, I feel I must take this opportunity to congratulate you upon your beard. It is a fine beard. We live in a world where many men of business would shrink away from the idea of ‘ginger beard’ as trademark, and I truly believe that your dogged commitment to facial hair displays a businessman unafraid of individuality, of taking risks, of going out on a limb, and not minding how the world might perceive him. All these can only be applauded.

As can the unstoppable rise of the Virgin empire. From Virgin Records, to Virgin Trains, Virgin Airlines, Virgin Vodka, Virgin banking, Virgin insurance and Virgin Condoms (only pipped in the irony stakes by your rumoured chain of Virgin Abortion Clinics), your empire has gone from strength to strength, even though you insist on wearing wooly jumpers and a ginger beard, and I feel that no letter of complaint can begin without making reference to these remarkable achievements.

This is, however, a letter of complaint.

Perhaps, by diversifying in your business interests quite so much, you may have lost touch with the fact that each of them needs as much attention as the others. You may, in fact have forgotten that some of them exist at all.
They may just seem like one big crowd of ‘Virgins’ with no individual faces, obeying your every command.
And in that respect, your life is probably much like Mick Jagger’s, apart from the fact that Mick Jagger doesn’t run a train company, with thousands of people each day trying to travel somewhere with the ‘help’ of his company’s resources.
Maybe he should.

So let me introduce you to Virgin Trains. You own it. And it’s not very good.

A couple of years ago, I was walking past the newsagent’s on Manchester Piccadilly station, where, for want of space, they were cheerfully displaying the new Virgin Timetable on the rack labelled “Puzzles and Humour”.
And I think that sums it all up pretty accurately.

I do not ask that your trains run exactly to time – I realise that there are a million factors that go into not making that happen, and I realise that some of those million, perhaps 8, are not your fault, so we’ll not speak of that in this letter.
So I do not ask that your trains run exactly to time, I’m understanding about that.
Many of your customers I’m sure, would ask that very thing, I do not.

I do not ask that your reservation system be understandable to mortals.
I do not ask that, if you book me into coach ‘N’, that you should actually have a coach ‘N’.
Or anything above coach ‘D’, in fact.
I realise that true visionary business skills run outside the constraints of common logic.

I do not ask that you lower the price of your coffee, I am sure that the price of employing branded Brazilian Virgins to sit in the buffet car and squeeze each bean individually to get the most of the flavour is a necessary, if somewhat expensive, marketing tool.
Nor do I ask that you request that your employees actually fill the cups of coffee that they serve.
I am sure that to fill more than a quarter full would be in disregard of the Health and Safety laws.
So well done on that one.

I simply ask that, for helpfulness sake,
you would sell tickets on trains that actually exist.
That you would inform your agent, thetrainline, that it takes not 3 hours, but a mere hour and a quarter to travel between Glasgow and Carlisle, and to suggest otherwise can lead to confused travel plans and frostbite.

I would also like to complain that the coffee on Carlisle Station is too hot, and that cups too flimsy.
I realise that this is not entirely your jurisdiction, but it is an additional factor to a bad journey, for which I blame you entirely.

Incidentally, I apologise for the spillage of said station coffee over your technical equipment, company furniture, and employee.
Although I would like to complain that your employee was pretty clueless.

And wet.
Although for that, I take slight responsibility. (Although the responsibility really lies in the lap of the coffee provider. Just as the coffee lay in the lap of the travel provider. Anyway.)

In conclusion, I would like to say that although I hold all respect for your hard work and business acumen,
your train service sucks shit.

Thank you.
Your passenger (on occasion, ?hen the trains exist at all),