London (AFP) – British entrepreneur Richard Branson vowed Thursday to “shake up” cross-Channel train services after regulators approved a key bid by his Virgin Group to share an east London depot with Eurostar. The Virgin founder said the decision by the Office of Rail and Road (ORR) to grant access to the Temple Mills International site for maintaining and storing trains was “the right one for consumers”.
The move allows Branson to advance plans to launch a Virgin Trains service in 2030 to rival Eurostar, which has held a monopoly on passenger services through the tunnel linking Britain and France since it opened in 1994. “It’s time to end this 30-year monopoly and bring some Virgin magic to the cross-Channel route,” he said. “We’re going to shake up the cross-Channel route for good and give consumers the choice they deserve.”
Access to the depot is a critical requirement for an operator to launch services. It is the only accessible site on the high-speed line running between London and the Channel Tunnel. The ORR said it rejected rival applications from Evolyn, Gemini, and Trenitalia, noting Virgin Trains “has the strongest prospects of making the best use of capacity at Temple Mills”. It added the firm was more “financially and operationally robust” and had “provided clear evidence of investor backing and an agreement in principle” for trains.
The regulator said its decision unlocks proposals for around £700 million ($924 million) of investment in new services and the creation of 400 new jobs, “in a win for passengers, customer choice, and economic growth”.
**- ‘Ambitions’ -**
Virgin Trains confirmed earlier this year it had reached an agreement with manufacturer Alstom to purchase 12 Avelia Stream trains, saying Thursday that they will be funded by infrastructure investor Equitix. Virgin Group will lead the funding of the operating company, alongside Equitix and private equity firm Azzurra Capital. However, it will still need to gain additional regulatory approvals covering issues such as track access and safety.
Although the tunnel is only used at about 50 percent capacity, previous rival bids for a new Channel service have hit hurdles including regulation and restricted station capacity. Eurostar runs trains from London’s St Pancras station to locations such as Paris, Brussels, and Amsterdam, which Virgin plans to mirror. Faced with potential competition, Eurostar last week announced plans to run double-decker trains through the Tunnel in a first for UK rail tracks.
A 2.0-billion euro ($2.3-billion) investment in up to 50 electric double-decker trains built by French group Alstom could help Eurostar reach its aim to transport 30 million passengers annually by the new decade, up around 50 percent from current traveller numbers. Virgin Trains, which had a UK franchise between 1997 and 2019, has also said it has “ambitions” to expand “further across France, and into Germany and Switzerland”.
LeShuttle also operates vehicle-carrying trains between Folkestone in southeast England and Calais in northern France. A record-high of 19.5 million passengers travelled on Eurostar last year, up nearly five percent on 2023, driven by demand from visitors to the Olympics and Paralympics in Paris. Many travellers have said they opted to take a plane rather than Eurostar because of the latter’s fares which are deemed too high on average, according to a survey late last year.
© 2024 AFP
