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Rivals to Eurostar: what are their chances of success?

Published: 2 September, 2025 | Tags: , , , ,

The rail podcast channel Green Signals has interviewed Jon Worth, the European railway policy commentator, about Eurostar’s rival hopefuls. The resulting discussion is posted on Jon’s website and on YouTube.

The video is a must-watch for anyone who is following the developments regarding the cross-Channel rail network, its history and its future potential. Jon’s limpid explanations shine through the sensitive prompting and questioning of his interviewer Richard Bowker.

Jon Worth is British, has lived in Germany and currently lives in France. He has developed a specialised interest in European cross-border rail that has made him a consultant to the EU on possible improvements. He is also passionate about cross-Channel rail.

Eurostar’s failings

Since the pandemic, the shortcomings of Eurostar’s monopoly on the cross-Channel route have become ever more evident. Eurostar are running fewer trains while charging higher prices; they no longer stop at intermediate stations; they have axed the direct routes to Disneyland Paris as well as the ski station of Bourg St Maurice and southern destinations such as Marseille and Lyon. Anecdotally, we know that trains are frequently very delayed or even cancelled.

Jon explained that Eurostar was originally owned by the three governments of the countries it served: the UK, France and Belgium. But in 2015, as the UK Coalition Government sold the UK’s stake to a pension fund from Quebec. Since then Eurostar has largely been controlled and operated by the French state railways SNCF. This is ironic given that to France, the cross-Channel route is just one high-speed line among many. To the the UK, it is the nation’s only international railway.

The Channel Tunnel rail link is therefore of far greater strategic importance to the UK than to France. And yet, since the pandemic, there has been a rise in awareness that it is not serving our interests. For Eurostar, there is no incentive to do more than serve the capital cities and charge as much as they can get away with. Eurostar is servicing debts from the pandemic, and could also be regarded as a cash cow by SNCF.

Time for some competition

Ultimately, says Jon, there are only two levers for controlling a monopoly operator whose service has become inadequate: government pressure (not an option for the UK) and competition. It is hoped that competition will “drive down prices and drive up the offer”.

Is there room for another operator, asked Richard Bowker? A resounding yes from Jon Worth. Several operators are interested. The idea has also received encouragement from Getlink (the owners of the Channel Tunnel) and London St Pancras High Speed (formerly HS1).

The key here is access to the maintenance depot at Temple Mills, South London, which is largely occupied by Eurostar. The Office of Rail and Road are due to rule on which of the competitors vying for the route will be allocated the remaining space in the depot (18%), and this will effectively decide which one can go ahead with a rival service to Eurostar. Jon has read all their submissions to the ORR and assesses their competing claims.

Who are the potential rival operators?

There are three or four, depending on how you count them. All of them, says Jon, appear to have tailored their offerings to the space available in Temple Mills regardless of what other maintenance space might come available on the other side of the Channel. Therefore their offerings are small and underwhelming.

Virgin Trains has announced a “binding agreement” to order 12 trains from Alstom should they be allocated the depot space. The media frenzy that followed this announcement made it look as if the trains were already on order, but they are not. The detail: these are 200m Abelia Stream trainsets where 400m trains are actually needed. Thus Virgin would have only six full-size trains, compared with Eurostar’s 22. Their trains will be single-decker upgrades of the rolling stock already in use on the UK’s West Coast Main Line, only faster. The model is untested at high speeds. Worse, Alstom’s order book for these trains is such that Virgin are unlikely to obtain them in time for their predicted launch in 2030.

Gemini don’t specify the exact train but also make mention of 200m train sets, numbering 10, which would amount to 5 Eurostar-sized trains. They are said to be talking to Siemens, who made Eurostar’s most recent fleet and therefore know what they are about. Their order book is shorter than Alstom’s for the high-speed rolling stock, which is a plus for Gemini.

Evolyn is a Spanish family-owned company which runs buses in Spain and are 25% shareholders in Mobico/National Express in the UK. They don’t have experience as a train operator but they have deep pockets, and they have mooted a tie-up with the Italian state railway TrenItalia. Evolyn and TrenItalia made separate submissions to the ORR.

If TrenItalia were to rely on the same Hitachi trains they already use for the Paris-Lyon line, the Temple Mills depot may be a non-issue because heavy maintenance could take place in Milan or elsewhere in France. The Hitachi trains are a good high-speed all-rounder which already run in France and work well in tunnels, so the upgrade for the Channel Tunnel would not pose a problem. They could be the first of the competitors to produce the required rolling stock.

Eurostar themselves have for the past 15 months been announcing the arrival of new rolling stock, although no orders have been placed so far. The word is that they are looking at Abelia Horizon TGVM from Alstom, double decker TGVs for which there is an long order book already, which could take delivery beyond 2030. Why, muses Jon, have Eurostar not already placed the order? If they did, the double-decker design would be bad news for people who want stops at intermediate stations, because they are slow loading.

Other points

The French rail start-up Kevin Speed is building a maintenance depot north of Paris. Jon feels that Eurostar’s competitors should consider doing the same in future, if they want to increase their services to the UK.

The ORR will announce its choice on 31st October. This will be a decision of historic importance for the UK in general and the south east of England in particular.

Once again we highly recommend watching the whole interview with Jon Worth. This is indeed a very interesting time to be taking an interest in cross-Channel rail.