Rail crisis: London-to-Edinburgh route to be nationalised | Business | guardian.co.uk

It is the second time in three years that the owner of the east coast contract has walked away from its contract. GNER gave up the franchise in 2006 after admitting that its promise to pay the Department for Transport (DfT) £1.3bn over 10 years was too much. Undeterred, National Express bid £1.4bn for a seven-and-a-half year contract less than 12 months later.

[...]

The contract has become a financial millstone that is expected to lose the company £90m over the next two years. In order to meet its targets, the franchise requires passenger revenue growth of about 10% per year, but the latest figures showed a 1% increase in turnover as the recession hits demand and forces business passengers - a key earner for the route - to trade down to standard class tickets.

And this from 2008:

National Express profits climb as rail booms

Booming demand for rail travel has allowed National Express to commit to raising its dividend by 10 per cent for the next three years.

The bus and transport group, which today reported pre-tax profits up 44 per cent to £149 million, has seen passenger growth of 6 per cent in 2007, despite high-profile problems on the railway network and above-inflation increases in ticket prices.

Shares in National Express climbed almost 4 per cent in early trading to £11.60, on the back of the results, which were slightly ahead of market expectations.

The transport group, which has operated the high-profile long-distance East Coast business from London to Scotland since December, said that its confidence over the group's prospects, in particular its rail business, meant that it could commit to a 10 per cent a year increase in the dividend.