Alex McWhirter has his say on the issues facing rail passengers. This month - how the competitive pressure for Eurostar to expand beyond Paris and Brussels no longer exists
It is looking increasingly likely that Eurostar’s expansion plans will be put on hold. With rival Deutsche Bahn’s London services delayed for the foreseeable future (see Platform, March 2013), the competitive pressure for Eurostar to expand beyond Paris and Brussels no longer exists.
At a press conference in October 2010 at London’s Albert Hall, it was announced that Eurostar would spend £700 million on ten new Siemens trains as well as refurbish its current ones.
The new Eurostar E320 trains will travel at 320 km/ph and will be equipped with the latest technology, enabling them to run beyond Paris and Brussels to destinations in the Netherlands, Germany and Switzerland.
Although Eurostar never specified which destinations the trains would cover, it was widely expected that they would serve Amsterdam, Cologne, Frankfurt and Geneva from 2015.
However, a report in the June 2013 issue of Today’s Railways UK magazine claims that Eurostar has now decided to refurbish only 14 of its current fleet of 27 trains (Eurostar has 28 sets, with one set currently out of service). So it appears the E320s will be used to augment existing destinations rather than forge new ones. In that case, it would suggest that some unrefurbished sets will be temporarily “mothballed”.
Not only are the E320s slightly faster, they can accommodate more passengers (900 as against 750 for existing trains) so would cope better with peak demand on the popular London-Paris route.
But there is concern over the delivery schedule. Siemens has revealed it cannot deliver the new sets on schedule owing to technical issues. Interviewed in the German newspaper Suddeutsche Zeitung, Roland Busch, chief executive of Siemens’ infrastructure and cities division, said: “I admit we underestimated the complexity of the contract. The European railway control systems are like an old rug that we manufacturers are expected to turn into a Persian carpet.” It means the delivery date of 2014 is now postponed until at least 2015 – which Eurostar confirmed to the Financial Times in April.
But an even bigger barrier to through-running is the UK Border Agency (UKBA). The UK is not a member of the Schengen area so the UKBA insists that UK-bound passengers and their baggage must be security screened. In May and June, Eurostar trialled a once-weekly direct link with London, Lyon and Aix-en-Provence. On the way back, passengers had to disembark with their bags at Lille for clearance. This process took 80 minutes and would be unacceptable for passengers taking services from, say, Amsterdam or Frankfurt. It means Eurostar cannot consider operating its E320s beyond Paris and Brussels until UKBA procedures are sorted out.
Ideally, the immigration authorities would construct special terminals like those in Brussels Midi and Paris Nord. But as readers who have used Amsterdam Central, Cologne Hbf and Frankfurt Hbf can testify, these are busy stations with little, if any, spare room for processing up to 900 passengers at a time.
Even if there was, how long would it take to construct the facilities? In a statement provided to Business Traveller, Eurostar said: “The £700 million of investment we announced at the Albert Hall event includes the purchase of ten new sets from Siemens, as well as the refurbishment of a number of sets in our existing fleet. This does not preclude the refurbishment of more sets and the decision will be dependent on our plans regarding routes, which have not yet been finalised.
“We have yet to decide which of our sets will be used on which routes and how our fleet will be organised. Regarding new routes, any decisions have yet to be finalised and we continue to examine our options.”
Following the Albert Hall event, we reported that the existing sets would be refurbished between 2012 and 2014. But to date, not a single refurbished train has entered service. Travellers report that these 20-year-old sets need an update, especially in the provision of wifi. Over to Eurostar: “We have yet to confirm when we will unveil the first of the refurbished sets. We will update further in due course.”
