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Last week, we brought you the news that Virgin had won approval for UK track access to rival Eurostar. Richard Branson announced that his company would run trains from London St Pancras to Paris, Brussels and Amsterdam, with plans to expand ‘further across France, and into Germany and Switzerland’.
Now, according to data gathered by Politico, the increased services mean a high-speed train could cross the Channel from London every 15 minutes. That’s thanks to the competition not only from Virgin but also from Italian railway operator Trenitalia, which is aiming to offer 10 return journeys per day. Trenitalia wants to start services from 2029 and Virgin from 2030.
Trenitalia has ordered 19 new high-speed trains from Hitachi, which set the company back €2bn (£1.7bn), with the intention of deploying them through the Channel Tunnel. For its part, Virgin agreed to acquire a dozen train sets from train manufacturer Alstom back in January.
Martin Jones, Deputy Director, Access, Licensing & International at the Office of Rail and Road (ORR), said that Virgin’s appointment is ‘an important next step in bringing competition and growth to the market for international rail services’.
Mark Smith, who runs the train travel website The Man in Seat Sixty-One, told Politico: ‘Both contenders appear to have the ability and financial backing to make this happen, but there are many steps in a long process before any train runs. Trenitalia are in pole position with a 2029 start date, helped by having ordered trains of a type already approved for France and a continuation of an existing production line.’
The Channel Tunnel has been under capacity since 1994, the year it opened, and its operator has actively been on the lookout for a rival to Eurostar for over a decade and a half. Back in 2011, Eurotunnel told the House of Lords that it had played a ‘central role’ in encouraging German rail company Deutsche Bahn to offer a rival to Eurostar. That ultimately didn’t work out due to a safety dispute and stock issues.
Eurostar responded to the news of increased competition by acknowledging ‘the huge potential for growth in international rail and the ambition across the industry to bring more passengers to Europe by train’.
The company added: ‘Eurostar will play a full part in that growth, and our focus remains on delivering our own ambitious plans, investing in our fleet and carrying 30 million passengers a year.’
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