2023-12-14 20:31:28
By Le Figaro with AFP
Published 5 minutes ago, Updated now
For 30 years, only the Eurostar company has provided passenger transport between the continent and England, at a price often considered prohibitive. Pascal Rossignol / REUTERS
The general director of Getlink, manager of the tunnel, wants to shorten the deadlines for launching a line, with his sights set on the objective of doubling direct connections between London and European capitals over the next ten years.
«The Channel Tunnel railway is largely underutilized»: the managing director of Getlink, the infrastructure manager, Yann Leriche, promised on Thursday a doubling of connections between London and the continent within 10 years, with potential new cities served. Cologne, Frankfurt, Geneva, Zurich… The company’s boss has put on the table a whole series of new possible destinations for operators who would like to get started.
Getlink claims to have halved the time to launch a line passing through the tunnel thanks to “standardization of tunnel standards” and an “integration of standards with manufacturers into their standard rolling stock offering“. In summary, it is possible to buy a train from a catalog capable of running almost directly in the tunnel.
In 1994 when the infrastructure opened, only two connections were possible: London-Paris and London-Brussels. A new London-Amsterdam line was then opened in 2020. It took ten years to come to fruition, between the idea of launching it and the first trip. “It is too long», insisted Yann Leriche.
«Now you can get started, buy the train, and five years later you are traveling», indicated Yann Leriche on the occasion of an event organized for the 30th anniversary of the Channel tunnel, work on which ended on December 10, 1993. Thanks to this shortening of deadlines, “we will have a doubling of direct connections between London and European capitals within ten years», he wants to believe.
Read alsoAfter twenty years on the edge, the ex-Eurotunnel has found its balance
London-Frankfurt and London-Cologne connections to come
For 30 years, only one company – Eurostar – has provided passenger transport between the continent and England, at a price often considered prohibitive, particularly compared to plane or ferry. Two companies have recently announced their intention to launch new routes: Evolyn and the Dutch Heuro. For the moment, no train order has been formalized, making the possibility of seeing a competing offer to the Eurostar emerge in the years to come still hypothetical.
Already in 2013, Deutsche Bahn rolled one of its ICEs through the Channel Tunnel. At the time, the historic German railway operator planned to offer its first trips in 2016. The project never came to fruition. But this time, for connections to Cologne or Frankfurt “all market studies are carried out and studies of the necessary station developments are also carried out. It remains for an operator to decide to go there, the paths have even been prepared», promised Yann Leriche.
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