The Channel Tunnel between Great Britain and France, which opened 30 years ago, will soon allow more trains to travel to new destinations on the European mainland. Tunnel operator Getlink wants to create the technical conditions so that competing rail companies can travel to new destinations from London, the company announced in Paris.
This includes Deutsche Bahn, which continues to aim to run its ICE trains directly to London; the desire to do so has been around for many years. So far, only high-speed passenger trains from the Franco-British company Eurostar run through the tunnel.
“The traffic between London and the mainland through the Eurotunnel continues to be of fundamental interest to Deutsche Bahn,” said a DB spokesman to the dpa. DB’s international long-distance transport is showing high growth rates and the trend in transport to Great Britain is also clearly moving towards environmentally friendly rail.
Obstacles in the way
However, both routes and trains are currently not yet equipped with a consistent European train control system ETCS, said the DB spokesman. “The approval of our ICE trains for Belgium, northern France and England depends on this equipment.” Further details about the schedule could only be given once the schedule and technical requirements for the route conversions were transparent.
As early as 2013, the DB originally planned to have its ICE trains run from Frankfurt via Cologne, Brussels and Lille to London and back three times a day. Years of disputes over security requirements ultimately prevented this. The Spanish state railway company Renfe was repeatedly mentioned as another interested party in starting train connections through the Channel Tunnel.
A few weeks ago, tunnel operator Getlink announced accelerated efforts together with regulators and infrastructure managers to enable rail companies to launch new services from London to the mainland within five years. Connections from London to Cologne and Frankfurt, to Geneva and to Zurich were mentioned. Specifically, it is about standardizing standards for the tunnel and trains as well as preparing new connections with the network operators and affected train stations.
