Eurostar to launch direct trains from UK to Germany and Switzerland
Eurostar has promised direct trains from London to Frankfurt and Geneva – but not this decade. The cross-Channel rail firm says it will buy up to 50 new trains and will run some of them from the UK to Germany and Switzerland in the “early 2030s”.
The announcement comes as rival firms are vying to compete with Eurostar through the Channel Tunnel. Eurostar says it marks “a new golden age of international sustainable travel”.
The transport secretary, Heidi Alexander, said: “I am pleased to welcome this exciting investment into Eurostar services, which is a huge step in promoting green travel across Europe and boosting our international rail connections.
But will travellers be tempted? These are the key questions and answers.
The most popular – and profitable – route is from London to Paris, but Eurostar also links the UK capital with Lille in northern France, Brussels, Rotterdam and Amsterdam.
Eurostar used to serve many more places, including Calais, Disneyland Paris, Lyon, Avignon and Marseille, but gave up due to a combination of Covid and Brexit.
You can of course connect at Lille, Paris, Brussels or Amsterdam, but that ranges from a bit of an inconvenience at Brussels to a complete faff when having to change terminal stations in Paris.
Direct trains between London St Pancras and both Frankfurt (four times a day) and Geneva (three times a day), some time from 2030 onwards. While there is no detail about stops, I predict the Frankfurt train would stop in Cologne on its 5 hour journey, while the 5 hour 20 minutes trip from London to Geneva might simply stop at Paris Charles de Gaulle airport en route – or perhaps even pause at Disneyland Paris. But such decisions are so far down the line that frankly anything is possible.
Eurostar wants to increase its passenger numbers, and sees these key business routes as good targets. Currently there are 15 flights a day each way between the London airports and Geneva (a number that increases sharply in peak ski season) and two dozen flights from London to Frankfurt.
Eurostar will build on its success of the route to Amsterdam, which is just over four hours from London; a fourth daily train will launch on 9 September and a fifth from mid-December.
Many of the people on Eurostar at present are business travellers, and increasingly companies are stipulating their staff should travel by rail if a reasonable alternative to flying is available.
Eurostar’s chief executive, Gwendoline Cazenave, told me the firm’s customers want to travel more in a more sustainable way – and that a five-hour journey would be popular with travellers. “You work, you rest, and you have a great time. It’s what we call seamless travel and the unique Eurostar experience.”
Many of the hurdles and stresses involved in aviation are reduced for international rail travel. Yet I think five hours or more could be pushing it. Even though the journey is city-centre to city-centre, connectivity is notoriously patchy on trains – though that may of course improve in the next few years.
For budget passengers, fares of perhaps £59 each way will be available with sufficient advance booking and flexibility. But the airlines will probably continue to tempt travellers because they are often cheaper as well as faster.
That was always the plan when Eurostar was first conceived. The rolling stock was built, the timetables drawn – but at the same time the no-frills airlines sprang up and stole the market. When HS2 from Birmingham to London is finally built, it will have no connection to HS1 – the line that runs to the Channel Tunnel.
Three companies are desperate to compete with Eurostar on its core routes, particularly London-Paris. They are Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Group, Italy’s state-owned railway company FS Italiane, and a start-up called Gemini Trains, which plans to run from Stratford in east London.
There is plenty of room on the rails for competition, but St Pancras would need some reconfiguration – and last week the Office of Rail and Road said capacity at the international train depot in east London is so limited that at most one new entrant could compete with Eurostar.
Yes, though the company would say it competes with airlines, coach firms and people deciding to drive between London and Continental Europe using the tunnel or ferries.
Since 1994, with limited capacity, average fares have been high. Booking tomorrow, for example, the lowest London-Paris on-way fare is £219. The cheapest flights are one-third of that.
While Eurostar offers some tickets for as little as £78 return for those who book ahead and are flexible, the company is doing well from its market position. It makes a handsome £8 per passenger profit at present.
Listen to Simon Calder’s podcast on the Eurostar plans
Boost for Badenoch as Tories raise twice as much from donors as Reform
The Conservatives have received twice as much money from donors as Reform in the first three months of this year, even as they sink in the polls.
The financial backing will come as a boost to the under-pressure Tory leader Kemi Badenoch, days after her party dropped to fourth place in a major poll.
Ms Badenoch’s party took in £3.36m, Reform £1.5m, Keir Starmer’s party £2.3m and the Liberal Democrats £1.5m, the Electoral Commission statistics show.
The Tories hit out at Reform — also under pressure after losing and regaining its chairman in recent days — saying it had “failed to secure the donations they claimed were coming” and had a “fantasy approach to finances”.
The Conservatives said Reform UK party sources had in January “claimed a dinner in Mayfair had secured over £1 million in pledges yet there is no evidence in the latest Electoral Commission figures that support this.”
They also pointed to figures which show 42 per cent of Reform UK’s donations during the three months rely on £613,000 from deputy leader Richard Tice’s company. But Mr Farage hit back, accusing Labour and the Conservatives of having relied on their ability to hand out peerages to bankroll their parties for decades.
However, a Conservative source said much of the money raised is to pay off election debt.
They said: “We were told there was no money that’s why they had to sack so many people.”
Asked about the donation figures, the Reform leader said: “Is it easy to raise big money in politics? It’s not… because I have not got any peerages to give out.
“The honours system is corrupted beyond belief, we don’t have any gongs to give out.” Mr Farage went on to stress he is confident he is building relationships with the donors Reform needs, while stressing that the bulk of its revenue comes from supporters giving between £25 and £50.
That almost a third of the money raised by the Conservatives came from one donor, however, will do little to ease Tory MPs fears their leader is not doing enough to build the kind of wide support needed to win the next election.
The largest single donation was £1m from former Labour supporter Jez San, a computer game entrepreneur.
David Ross, the founder of Carphone Warehouse, who halted donations to the party during its post-Boris Johnson years, is also listed as giving £40,000, in two separate donations.
Mr Ross, who once “facilitated” accommodation for Mr Johnson on the island of Mustique, will become the party’s senior treasurer later in the year.
Reginald Collins, a longtime member of Labour, was the party’s largest individual donor, leaving it £350,000 when he died.
The Liberal Democrats had the most individual donors, at 246. The Tories had 122, Labour 93 and Reform 70.
The Tories said the latest figures build on the momentum of the previous quarter, where the party raised £1.9 million – more than all the other major political parties combined.
The party said major donors were returning “to support Kemi Badenoch’s mission of renewal to completely rewire Britain for the 2030s, based on Conservative values of sound money, lower taxes, and a smaller government that does fewer things but better.”
Lord Dominic Johnson, co-chairman of the Conservative Party, said: “The Conservative Party’s finances are in great shape. These impressive figures show momentum, building on the strong figures last quarter.
“It marks stark contrast with Labour, ever more reliant on union donations, and Reform, still reeling from internecine warfare, struggling to make good on fantasy pledges and having to be bailed out by Richard Tice.
“We are the party of sound money and economic credibility and donors old and new are backing Kemi’s mission of Conservative Renewal.”