Yes i think BA will be rubbing their hands with Glee, one thing virgin did do, was get people to abandon flying to London from up here, and take the train, whether you like Virgin/Branson or not, they did get the product mostly right in the end, which just shows by the number of people using the service, which is double the east coast line, and that side of the country on other hand i would say, gets better served by air, than what we do now.
enviromentally the train would probably more than likely be better , but as has been said it depends on what kind of service First gives, and typically its not always very good, having travelled on First transpennine from Blackpool, you can get a very nice train, onanother occasion, its some clapped out thing, they have already said their going to cram more seats into the what will be ex-virgin trains, all seems very bizzare, but that sums this country up, you build something up to be a sucess, then thats not good enough , we, as in the country(or gov,t) have to go and bugger it all up!!!