WCT Group Limited, until 2021 under the name Virgin Rail Group Limited, is a British rail transport company that was formed in 1996 by the Virgin Group to bid for rail franchises in the United Kingdom during the privatisation of British Rail.

Amid the privatisation of British Rail during the mid 1990s, Virgin submitted multiple bids to operate several different train franchises, including Gatwick Express, InterCity CrossCountry and InterCity West Coast. It was successful in winning the latter two, leading to Virgin CrossCountry and Virgin West Coast commencing operations in January and March 1997 respectively. Both franchises were scheduled to run for 15 years.

One of Virgin's franchise commitments was to replace the British Rail-era locomotives and rolling stock inherited by Virgin West Coast with brand new tilting trains. Following negotiations with several manufacturers, Virgin placed an order with Alstom/Fiat Ferroviaria to produce the envisioned tilting train, which was known by the name Pendolino and was later designated under TOPS as the Class 390. It was expected that the Pendolinos would run at service speeds of up to 140 mph (225 km/h) and that the whole fleet would be delivered by May 2002. The service introduction of the Pendolino was repeatedly delayed, a fact which has been attributed to the poor project management and the collapse of infrastructure owner Railtrack.

In order for tilting trains to be operated, Railtrack had committed itself to upgrading the West Coast Main Line as to permit 140 mph operation by 2005. However, the modernisation of the line suffered from spiralling costs, rising from an estimated £2 billion to roughly £10 billion, while the programme had failures that were technical as well as managerial, such as the moving block signalling apparatus being immature for such a busy mixed-traffic mainline. Railtrack would ultimately collapse while its successor, Network Rail, would also be unable to fully deliver the promised upgrade, heavily impacting Virgin West Coast's operations. The upgrade programme would be cut back, as a result, the top speed was reduced to 125 mph. The Pendolino fleet was introduced into passenger services from Birmingham International to Manchester Piccadilly on 23 July 2002, coinciding with the opening of the 2002 Commonwealth Games in Manchester.

In October 1998, Virgin Group sold 49% of the shares in Virgin Rail Group to the British transport company Stagecoach.

In March 2000, Virgin was shortlisted to bid for the InterCity East Coast franchise. During January 2002, the Strategic Rail Authority scrapped the refranchising process and awarded a two-year extension to GNER.

In the wake of the collapse of Railtrack and the inability of Network Rail to deliver on the 140 mph (225 km/h) West Coast Main Line upgrade, both the Virgin CrossCountry and Virgin West Coast franchises were suspended in favour of management contracts in July 2002. While the terms of the West Coast franchise were renegotiated, agreement could not be reached on CrossCountry and it was retendered in 2007. While Virgin Trains did bid to retain the franchise, it was awarded to Arriva, thus the services operated by Virgin CrossCountry were transferred to CrossCountry on 11 November 2007.

During 2004, Virgin was again shortlisted to bid for the InterCity East Coast franchise, but was ultimately unsuccessful; the franchise was instead won by Sea Containers, parent company of then train operator Great North Eastern Railway. After Sea Containers was stripped of the East Coast franchise due to poor financial management, Virgin was again shortlisted for the InterCity East Coast franchise in February 2007, submitting a bid had a 10% shareholding by the incumbent, Sea Containers. However, this bid was not successful, as the franchise was won by National Express.