2025 – A YEAR OF “ANNOUNCEMENTS”

During the past year we have enjoyed a series of announcements. It began with up to 5 possible competitors announcing their plans to compete against Eurostar from London. As there is limited room for servicing the trains at the depot in Stratford, the Regulator (Office for Road & Rail) then had to make a decision and invited all the competitors to make formal bids to use the depot. The Regulator then announced in October that Virgin had the most viable offer to run services to Paris, Brussels and Amsterdam using trains they plan to order. Eurostar had also announced their own plans to order new trains and run more services in the future.

During the course of the year, we also had announcements for more long-term aspirations. Firstly, the UK and Swiss Governments signed an agreement to explore options for direct rail services between the 2 countries. Then in the latter part of the year Eurostar and Deutsche Bahn announced plans to jointly run services between London and one, two or possibly three German City destinations. And there is always “The elephant in the room” as to how will they provide the onerous security & border controls at these destinations and any intermediate stops.

While there is enough capacity with 6 platforms at London St Pancras to run extra services, sooner or later there will be a stronger case for starting services from Stratford International and re-opening Ashford & Ebbsfleet. It is still not clear if there is enough platform & terminal capacity at Paris, Brussels & Amsterdam to run any of the planned extra services.

AND FINALLY – STOP PRESS FROM TRENITALIA -30th DECEMBER 2025

Trenitalia have just announced their own plans to launch a London-Paris service from 2029 – one year ahead of Virgin !! They seem to have enough suitable trains on order, plan to build their own depot in Northern France to service their trains and already run high speed train services in France. Here is their press release: https://parliamentnews.co.uk/italys-fs-group-to-enter-eurostar-route-with-london-paris-trains

And a Happy New Year to all subscribers !!!