EUROPE: The rail industry has finally reached a ‘turning point’ which will facilitate the launch of new international passenger train operators competing with Eurostar on routes to the UK.
This is the view of Channel Tunnel concessionaire Getlink, and Virgin and Evolyn are both taking advantage by developing serious proposals for new services.
Speaking to the UK’s All-Party Parliamentary Rail Group at the House of Commons in London on November 19, Getlink CEO Yann Leriche said there are four reasons why ‘we are at the turning point’.
Firstly, he said the demand is there, with passengers wanting through trains between London and cities including Köln, Frankfurt, Genève, Marseille and Bordeaux.
Secondly, he said it now easier to launch new international services. The complexities of obtaining track access rights have been reduced, while harmonisation of standards has simplified the rolling stock approvals process. As a result, the time from ‘if we decided tomorrow to launch a UK to Germany service’ to the start of operations has been reduced from an estimated 10 to five years.
Thirdly, there is a political consensus that there is a need for new train services.
And finally, the private sector is willing to both finance and operate new services, despite the high cost of rolling stock. Nevertheless, the long processes involved create challenges, and Leriche said the industry as a whole needed to act in more efficient way.
New entrants
Plans to compete with Eurostar on the Paris – London route were announced in October 2023 by new company Evolyn, which is led by the Cosmen family of Spain and backed by British and French industrial and financial partners.
CEO Jorge Cosmen told the APPRG that ‘we are convinced there is a very good opportunity’ in cross-Channel operations, and Evolyn could benefit from the UK’s long experience with an open rail market. He said the company’s plans would represent a €1bn investment.
Meanwhile, having previously operated franchises services in the UK, Virgin is looking to return to the rail market with a cross-Channel service, as well as open access plans in the UK.
‘We are very excited about getting back into rail’, and cross-Channel operations are ‘a market we can disrupt and grow’, Phil Whittingham, Virgin’s Project Lead and former head of Virgin Trains and Avanti West Coast told the APPRG.
Both Virgin and Evolyn emphasised their ambition to grow the market, rather than cannibalise Eurostar’s traffic. ‘Competition will be good for consumers’, said Whittingham, adding ‘we think we can get people out of planes’ for journeys of up to 4 h.
He noted that ‘buying trains is not easy’ and type approval is a ‘lot of work’, but said Virgin had been in the rail market for many years and has the experience to overcome the hurdles. He said Virgin had spoken to all the major train manufactures before shortlisting two suppliers, and it believes it can finance new trains without government guarantees although it still requires more clarity on the rules around access to depots and stations.
Access rights
John Larkinson, CEO of UK regulator the Office of Rail & Road, elaborated on the complexities over who has access to what.
While London St Pancras International station is available to any train operator and its passengers, and Whittingham said Virgin believes there were ways to increase passenger handling capacity, it was initially unclear whether a new operator would be entitled to have access to things like the Premier lounge. It has since been confirmed that they would.
More significant are the complexities around access to the high speed train maintenance depot at Temple Mills in east London, which is leased by Eurostar. Larkinson said that if a new entrant cannot agree terms with Eurostar, than the regulator can require that access is provided. This would require ORR to gain a better understanding of the theoretical capacity of the depot when working efficiently; Larkinson said the process does not need to be cumbersome, but it does need to be ‘fair and robust’.
Capacity through the Channel Tunnel is not a problem. Getlink’s Leriche said the infrastructure was built to handle much more than the current traffic, which 30 years ago was predicted to now be double current levels.
More local concerns about the new entrants’ ambitions were raised by Ashford MP Sojan Joseph, who asked the aspiring operators if they would stop at Ashford International station. Eurostar suspended calls in 2020 and never returned following the pandemic. Evolyn said it saw possible demand, and would look at growing the market.
Joseph told Railway Gazette International that ‘if they will serve Ashford, I’ll back them!’
