West Coast figures cast fresh doubt over Department for Transport decisions Stagecoach, which has been running West Coast for the past 15 years with Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Trains, said in a trading update on Tuesday that revenue on the London to Scotland line rose 2.7pc in the 24 weeks to October 14. Although this is an improvement on the 0.6pc reported for the first quarter, the figure raises further questions over the DfT's decision in August to award a new 13-year contract to FirstGroup, based on double-digit annual revenue growth projections. Transport Secretary Patrick McLoughlin, who earlier this month scrapped a decision to award FirstGroup the contract, will be grilled by MPs on the Transport Select Committee on Wednesday. That follows the publication of an interim report into the fiasco, which found the DfT committed a number of "significant errors" and knew at the start of this year that some of its methods for deciding the contract winner were "flawed." Rail industry bosses are eager to know what "extraneous factors" led to DfT officials treating FirstGroup's bid differently from Virgin's offer. The interim report, published by Centrica boss and DFT non-executive Sam Laidlaw, confirmed FirstGroup and Virgin were "treated inconsistently," adding to concerns that there was an "anyone but Branson" bias at the department. Mr Laidlaw is investigating whether DfT officials decided not to ask bidders to put up a higher level of risk capital for fear that it might knock them out of the competition, or prevent them from bidding for other franchises. Virgin has long questioned why FirstGroup, which has debts of £1.8bn, was only asked to put up £190m in risk capital when it believed the actual figure should have been closer to £600m. Stagecoach said on Tuesday that trading across the group remained "good." Revenue at its UK rail division, which excludes its West Coast joint-venture with Virgin, was up 7.9pc while its North American business posted 10.7pc growth.