Dutch Departures

- Alex McWhirter

Back in 1994, Eurostar was established as a high-speed train operator between London, Belgium and France via the Channel Tunnel. That’s the way it has stayed ever since – but now the rail firm, which is majority owned by France’s SNCF, is poised to exit its comfort zone and launch regular services to the Netherlands.

It is true that you can already book tickets from London to Holland on eurostar.com, but these are not direct services. They require a change at Brussels Midi and there is always the risk of missing connections.

The change of strategy has come with the arrival of new 900seat Siemens e320 trainsets, which have the technical capability to operate into Holland. Eurostar’s original 750-seat Alstom e300 trains cannot do this unless they undergo modification, which was deemed to be uneconomical given their age.

Mind you, cynics would argue that Eurostar would have stayed in its comfort zone had it not been for Germany’s Deutsche Bahn (DB). In 2010, there was much excitement when DB announced it wanted to operate ICE through-trains (Germany’s high-speed version of France’s TGV) into London St Pancras from Holland, Belgium and Germany.

These plans never came to fruition – after years of battling with the Channel Tunnel authorities to have its ICEs certified, DB dropped its plans. But DB’s challenge did prompt incumbent Eurostar to up its game. Believing it would soon face competition, it ordered a fleet of swank Siemens trainsets and put expansion plans in motion.