Branson watch

Yesterday morning saw Europe’s first biodiesel powered train set off on a journey from London to Llandudno.

The Virgin Voyager train has been modified to run on a slightly more eco-friendly fuel – a blend of regular diesel and 20% rapeseed, soya bean and palm oil. This should reduce CO2 emissions by about 14%. If the trial is successful, the company aims to convert more of it’s fleet in the future.

Virgin’s boss, Richard Branson, said that the company hopes to use 100% biodiesel in the future, which would be equivalent to removing 100,000 vehicles from the road. Virgin Atlantic have already ordered 15 Boeing 787 Dreamliner aircraft, which are 27 percent more fuel efficient than its current fleet, and if you read Virgin’s press release they state that…

One hundred percent of any profits made by Virgin Group through its train and plane companies for the next 10 years will be invested into developing clean fuels.

…which sounds pretty impressive.

We’ll be watching Sir Richard more closely from now on, and we’ll be awarding him his How Ethical! rating once we’ve done some more research.

No word on whether or not the train actually made it to Llandudno on time…