Demand is outpacing supply on many routes. Trains are full and fares are often exorbitant, forcing many passengers to use less environmentally friendly modes of transport.
Europeans want more routes and more trains on existing routes between major cities, the expansion of which is currently hampered by insufficient capacity, political problems and insufficient investment.
Unlike airlines, which can add new routes within months, building new high-speed rail lines takes decades and billions of dollars, especially when they cross international borders.
Currently, one of the biggest obstacles is the Channel Tunnel, the undersea rail link between Britain and France, which is owned by Eurostar, the high-speed train service connecting London, Paris, Brussels and Amsterdam, CNN writes.
Photo: iStock by Getty Images
Eurostar competes with airlines on busy European air routes but is currently unable to capitalize on huge pent-up demand due to capacity issues at stations in London, Paris and Amsterdam, as well as a chronic shortage of border control officers in the UK.
Although there is enough space on the dedicated high-speed rail lines it uses in the UK, Belgium, France and the Netherlands and through the Channel Tunnel, border staff cannot process enough passengers every hour to fill the 900-seat trains.
This means that some of them leave with unoccupied seats. Adding more trains would overburden city center stations (Eurostar has announced it is suspending services between London and Amsterdam for six months from June 2024 while the service’s terminal in the Netherlands is upgraded).
However, change may occur before the end of this decade.
After almost 30 years of monopoly, Eurostar suddenly faces a host of new challengers on its main international routes, with competition offering the prospect of more trains, greater choice and lower prices.
Ten times better than by plane
London could get extra high-speed trains to Belgium and the Netherlands under ambitious plans unveiled by new start-up Heuro on 14 November.
Created by a trio of Dutch entrepreneurs, Heuro aims to compete directly with Eurostar on the Amsterdam-Paris-London routes from 2028, offering up to 15 journeys a day to London and 16 to Paris.
Inspired by the success of Italy’s private operator Italo and competition from high-speed rail in Spain and France, Heuro’s founders want to transfer passengers from plane to train on some of Europe’s busiest short-haul air routes.
“We just want to lower the prices and get more people off the planes and onto the trains,” says Heuro founder Rumer van den Bigelaar.
“There are still 55 flights a day from Amsterdam to London and back, which I think is a lot,” he adds. “And that, with the existence of a high-speed tunnel. Personally, for me, traveling by train is 10 times more pleasant than traveling by plane. There are still capacity issues to London in terms of passport control, but that sort of thing can be solved . Eurostar is often quite full. If we start running trains there too, hopefully the prices will come down.”
Photo: iStock by Getty Images
Heuro has not yet revealed how much its tickets will cost, but it plans to undercut Eurostar and, if successful, will add more connections to other cities. Eurostar said it does not comment on such reports and is focused on increasing sustainable travel in Europe.
According to data published by ALLRail, which represents private rail operators in the European rail market, high-speed rail competition in Italy and Spain has contributed to an increase in service frequency, a reduction in ticket prices by up to 40% and an increase in the market by up to 300 % on some routes in the last decade.
ALLRail President Erich Forster welcomed Heuro’s announcement, saying: “Competition in Italy has led to more choice and more trains. This is clearly the solution for the North West European high-speed market as well.
“Put simply, start-ups like Heuro are the future of passenger rail. We look forward to an alternative to the current situation where – with only one Eurostar operator – the market is underserved.”
The return of Virgin?
Heuro’s announcement came just three days after Britain’s The Daily Telegraph newspaper reported that Richard Branson’s Virgin empire was looking to return to the rail sector to compete with Eurostar, four years after its last UK contract.
Although the story was dismissed as speculation by Virgin, the report claims a former Virgin Trains boss has been earmarked to head the new international rail company linking London and Paris.
Branson has previously said there is “unfinished business” in the rail sector and Virgin could become a serious competitor to Eurostar if the rumors prove true.
Spanish startup Evolyn, also backed by wealthy investors, was the first to show unequivocal interest in October.
It has announced plans to challenge Eurostar on the Paris-London route from 2025, with the service reaching its full potential in 2026. However, rail experts have expressed serious doubts about whether this goal is achievable.
With only one type of train currently in production, Eurostar’s Siemens-built e320, which has permission to run in the Channel Tunnel, and Siemens’ production lines fully occupied with a huge order for Germany’s Deutsche Bahn, Evolyn is turning to the French transport giant Alstom and could use trains similar to the latest generation TGV-M.
Alstom said it is currently only in discussions with the new company.
With Alstom’s La Rochelle plant also committed to building 100 TGV-Ms for French national railways SNCF over the next 10 years, Evolyn’s chances of getting new trains designed, built and authorized in less than two years look real very little.
To serve London, all three contenders face the same hurdles.
Photo: BTA
All of them will need to be equipped with high-speed trains compatible with the strict fire safety standards of the Channel Tunnel, as well as safety and power systems in up to five countries.
European rail expert John Werth told CNN: “Order trains from Siemens and maybe you’ll get a new train through the tunnel by 2028, but more likely by 2030. There’s no fundamental reason why you can’t build a TGV -M to be compliant with Channel Tunnel fire regulations, but so far this hasn’t been done – and you’ll need 12 months to get approval for a new design.”
Spanish train manufacturer Talgo offers a possible alternative. Its new Avril high-speed train, currently undergoing final tests in Spain and France, will be used for international services connecting Madrid and Barcelona with French cities, and has attracted the attention of French companies hoping for open access – Le Train and Kevin Speed.
Talgo is likely to be able to deliver suitable high-speed trains sooner than Alstom, although it will need to redesign Avril to meet Channel Tunnel rules and get the new variant approved by the tunnel regulator and infrastructure owners in France and the United Kingdom.
This process is likely to be measured in years rather than months, meaning that each new train will be delivered towards the end of this decade.
“And as if all this wasn’t complicated enough, new operators face the difficulty of finding route-allocated time slots for each service, which is extremely difficult in busy stations such as Paris’ Gare du Nord, as well as terminal capacity due to the heavy post-Brexit border checks,” adds John Worth.
“This is particularly challenging at London’s St Pancras station, which has little room to expand passport and security facilities. Neither of these things are insurmountable, but they are not easy either.”
Bigger and better
Perhaps the most serious challenge to Eurostar looms on routes unaffected by the political and operational problems that have dogged high-speed rail to London.
Italian Railways subsidiary QBuzz has applied to the Dutch competition authority for permission to operate the Amsterdam-Brussels-Paris and Amsterdam-Cologne-Frankfurt lines (in competition with Germany’s Deutsche Bahn) using the Frecciarossa high-speed trains already in use with great success in Italy, Spain and France.
QBuzz expects to open its new routes in January 2027.
Over the past two years, Italy’s Trenitalia has made a huge impression on the Paris-Milan and Paris-Lyon routes, where the Frecciarossa competes directly with the TGV. Since December 2021, the number of passengers on the route to Milan has increased by 58% and ticket prices have decreased by an average of 7%.
“This new example, as well as others such as SNCF and Trenitalia’s competition with Spanish railways, shows how long-distance competition between traditional operators is leading to a shift to passenger rail,” said Nick Brooks, secretary general of ALLRAIL, a group representing private railway operators.
Europe aims to double the use of high-speed rail by 2030 and triple current levels by 2050. These highly ambitious targets can only be achieved through a massive and accelerated expansion of the high-speed rail network.
Opening up existing high-speed rail lines to new operators will help create new capacity and attract more passengers through new routes, lower costs and more travel options, but the challenges involved should not be underestimated.
Alberto Mazzola, executive director of the Community of European Railways (CER), said his organization wants to see a high-speed rail network connecting all major cities, urban hubs and airports.
“With affordable and comfortable trains, rail will become the preferred mode of transport,” he told CNN, stressing the need for all 27 European Union countries to invest in high-speed rail.
“Our research clearly shows the significant socio-economic benefits as well as those for sustainable development from a high-speed rail network across the EU,” he said. “The long-term economic benefits, estimated at around $800 billion, will greatly outweigh the costs – estimated at $587 billion – and these connections will lead to tremendous increases in rail ridership and market share.”
ALLRAIL’s Brooks added: “We want to see high-speed trains with 1,000 seats each, frequently connecting places in Europe. This will lead to low ticket prices and high revenues. While other competing long-distance modes are aiming for ‘zero net emissions”, rail can achieve them to a greater extent and better.”
Photo: iStock by Getty Images
2023-12-04 09:55:10
#Passenger #trains #Europe #facing #problem #radical #change #coming
