Railway weekend must reads

A quick round up of stories from this weekend's press...

Sir Richard Branson letter in Saturday's Daily Telegraph defending Virgin Care - also refers to the company's West Coast franchise. Sir Richard claims "Virgin took on British Rail’s dilapidated trains and part of its dreadful service and turned it into an innovative, much improved line."

Arriva Cross Country is mentioned in a Saturday Guardian feature on Rip Off Britain. The Guardian's Consumer Affairs team ask Cross Country why it can't set cheap fares from St Austell to Macclesfield. Cross Country's Head of Communications says "I don't think it would be useful for customers to put a section on our website to explain how the fare system works. I think it's providing a level of complication."

David Cameron defended last week's trip to Asia in yesterday's Sunday Telegraph. "So this week I loaded up a plane with the biggest and most high-powered British business delegation ever to visit the region and we set off to put things right" he said. As Eye previously noted, the delegation contained no representative from the UK's railway industry.

Stagecoach's Sir Brian Souter support for the SNP mentioned in the Sunday Times (£) in an article on party political donations. "The Rich List figures reveal Salmond’s party also received the second-largest individual donation: £570,000 from Sir Brian Souter, the Stagecoach company tycoon".

That's all folks!