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Any further UK investment in depot space should come with conditions

Published: 13 March, 2026 | Tags: ,

Gwendoline Cazenave, Eurostar’s CEO, went on the BBC Radio 4’s Today programme this morning to bemoan the lack of investment in depot space at Temple Mills.

Listen to a clip here (©BBC 2026):

The background to this is Eurostar’s stated plan to introduce “50 new double decker trains by 2031”. Said Cazenave: “There will be the current 17 cross-Channel trains and 50 double-decker trains.” She claims that all 67 trains will be maintained at Temple Mills.

This would be in addition, she said, to Virgin’s trains which will start using Temple Mills in 2030.

Disingenuous

The absurdities contained in the interview must surely have struck the UK officials with whom Cazenave claims to be negotiating.

First, no double-decker trains have been cleared for use in the Channel Tunnel so far.

Second, our current understanding is that Eurostar has agreed to order an initial 30 trains with an option for a further 20, not the full 50 that Cazenave claims here. Previously, they said of these 30 that only a subset would even be on the rails by May 2031. S o far from the 50 suggested in this interview.

Third, as Eurostar includes all former Thalys routes connecting France, Belgium and the Netherlands, with around two dozen ageing train sets, many of these new double-decker trains will have to be used to replace these on non Channel crossing routes. The idea of stabling the entire fleet of 50 in the UK makes no sense, especially as Eurostar has depots in France and Belgium ideally placed to support its European mainland operations.

The weakness of Eurostar’s claims is underlined by the decision by the Office of Road and Rail (ORR) to allocate the spare space at Temple Mills to Virgin instead of Eurostar last year.

Reopen the Kent stations, now

Cazenave should be reminded that the UK has already heavily invested infrastructure which would provide much-needed capacity, and which Eurostar are now stubbornly refusing to use: the international stations at Ashford and Ebbsfleet. This point was not even alluded to in the interview.

Therefore, we at BBET call on the Government to put strict conditions on any new investment into cross-Channel rail: the operator(s) should reinstate the stops in Kent they were originally designed to make.

Any new Government investment in Temple Mills, and/or any new international depot space elsewhere in the UK, should come with some robust strings attached.