Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Trains has won permission to run up to 20 trains a day from London to Europe in competition with Eurostar.
The Office of Rail and Road (ORR), the industry regulator, has granted approval for Sir Richard’s company to run daily return services through the Channel Tunnel from 2030. Services will run between London and Paris, Brussels and Amsterdam.
The approval means Virgin Trains has passed another key regulatory hurdle towards starting the international service, after being granted access last October to share Eurostar’s Temple Mills depot in east London. Temple Mills is the only depot that can be accessed from High Speed 1, the line that runs between London and the tunnel.
Eurostar has held a monopoly on passenger services through the tunnel since it opened in 1994.
Sir Richard previously said it was “time to end this 30-year monopoly and bring some Virgin magic to the cross-Channel route”.
It plans to run services between St Pancras and the same stations in Paris, Brussels and Amsterdam used by Eurostar.
The ORR said the decision to grant track access was “an important next step”, but that there was “still more work to do” before the new services can run.
Martin Jones, the deputy director of access and international, said: “This is an important next step in bringing competition and growth to the market for international rail services, and we welcome the progress Virgin Trains and London St Pancras High Speed have made.
“While there is still more work to do, we are supporting Virgin and the wider industry to grow international services.”
Virgin Trains must still secure access to other rail networks and obtain safety approvals from the ORR and relevant regulators in the EU ahead of the plans to begin running services in 2030.
The ORR agreement covers the period between October 1 2030 to December 31 2040.
This is a developing story.
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