To celebrate the tenth anniversary of Virgin Trains winning the West Coast and CrossCountry franchises, the company is giving away 10,000 tickets* throughout its network.

The free tickets are available only by applying on line at www.virgin.com/trains/giveaway where information on full terms and conditions and a route map are available.

Each weekday almost 400 Virgin trains link towns and cities on the West Coast Main Line between London, the West Midlands, Liverpool, Manchester, North Wales and Glasgow and on a 1,500-mile CrossCountry network linking Scotland and northern England with the South Coast and south-west via Birmingham.

Virgin Trains Chief Executive Tony Collins said: "When we won the franchises we knew we faced difficult years ahead. Bringing in state-of-the-art trains to provide many more and much faster services were just three of the challenges to which we have risen successfully. As a big thank you for our customers' patience and loyalty during this revolution we'd like them to join in our birthday celebrations with a free trip on us."

Each passenger and guest may take a free single journey from Mondays to Saturdays between 5 January and 30 March 2007 by completing a simple online form with preferred journey and order of preference avoiding peak times such as Friday afternoons. School half-term holidays between 10 and 25 February are not included and closing date for applications is Monday 18 December or until stocks last.  Successful applicants will receive an authority to travel letter at least ten days before their specified journey date. Those whose requests cannot be met will be notified by email.