Virgin heads the race to rival Eurostar
Virgin Group have announced that before March this year, it will finalise an order for new rolling stock to run through the Channel Tunnel. It is evaluating rival suppliers for a dozen trains and when they begin running in 2029, Virgin will break Eurostar’s monopoly of over 30 years.
The news comes as other operators hint that they would run services through the Channel Tunnel, including the Spanish consortium Evolyn. As obstacles have fallen for new entrants to this market, one bottleneck remains the capacity of the maintenance depot of Temple Mills (TMI) in east London. Eurostar insists there is room there for one operator only: itself.
Virgin are hoping that the Office for Rail and Road (ORR) will rule that TMI has room for one more extra train operator, though more may be possible. Evolyn, for their part, have been trying for over 16 months to obtain transparency over TMI’s capacity, to further its own cross-Channel initiative. Evolyn has written to the ORR to complain that Eurostar is dragging its feet.
The rail commentator Jon Worth has given Virgin’s announcement a cautious welcome but believes that any challenger to Eurostar will face many hurdles before they can succeed. Train builders already operating at capacity, and cross-Channel trains will need to meet the tunnel’s strict fire safety regulations.
A direct rival to Eurostar’s core routes, where cross-border security and identity checking facilities already exist, will be straightforward. But opening up to new destinations (Cologne, Bordeaux, Lyon) will mean building those facilities there.
Category: General News
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