Virgin Trains fleet of tilting Pendolino Class 390 trains continues to clock up the miles, with the first trains expected to hit the one million miles mark by the end of this year.

Early indications are that Pendolino set No. 390022 Virgin Hope, has already travelled 810,500 miles and is set hit the big million figure by January 2008.

By next weekend the combined fleet of 53 trains will have travelled over 38 million miles - halfway to the sun, or the equivalent of 47,381 return trips on the West Coast Main Line between London and Glasgow.

Currently the Pendolino fleet is travelling around 40,000 miles a day - with the highest daily mileage diagrams covering over 1,100 miles. From the introduction of the enhanced West Coast timetable in January 2009 the daily mileage is set to increase by almost 25 per cent to 49,000 miles a day with a number of Pendolinos covering more that 1,200 miles a day. One diagram will cover over 1,300 miles on a daily basis.

Virgin's state-of-the art Pendolino trains are also environmentally friendly emitting at least 76 percent less CO2 than cars and 78 percent less than domestic flights. They also generate enough electricity each year to provide the electricity to power 11,825 homes for a year, or charge over four-and-a-half million mobile phones.