Proposed new Channel Tunnel services discussion

[TheWierdOne]

And now we wait for the legal challenges to start flying!

 

[Trainbike46]

That is disappointing, I was hoping for trenitalia to get the depot access.

 

[Peterthegreat]

And now we wait for the legal challenges to start flying!

Absolutely.

 

[Austriantrain]

That is disappointing, I was hoping for trenitalia to get the depot access.

Difficult to see how ORR could come to the conclusion that their plans where financially less robust than Virgins‘. They do have a very solid experience in running train services in third countries, seemingly successful. Virgin not so much, and AFAIK they haven‘t done anything rail related for years.

 

[Snow1964]

Reading the decision letter, it seems a lot of basis of decision was about 202m length of units, which when coupled would exceed the 400m depot road (and if not coupled would utilise 2 roads).

https://www.orr.gov.uk/sites/default/files/2025-10/2025-10-30-tmi-decision-letter-final.pdf

The letter does list the proposed services and unit types in the annex for each of the 4 applicants. The basis for the choice seems to be some sort of (unspecified) weighting of pros and cons of each application.

What I can't fathom is unless Eurostar has ordered shortened trains, the standard double deck Avelia Horizon are 202m long, so rejecting bids on basis of trains being 200-202m long seems irrational. Even more odd when section 23 of the annex refers to a new 4 road 415m maintenance shed for Eurostar (of course if Eurostar can invest in buildings, not clear why others couldn't extend a building a few metres)

The lawyers will have fun with this.

 

[Ellwill]

The ORR has announced this morning that Virgin's application for access to Temple Mills depot has been approved. Meanwhile other applications from Trenitalia, Evolyn and Gemini have been rejected.

Press release on the ORR website:

Rail regulator opens door to future international train services with Temple Mills access approval for Virgin Trains | Office of Rail and Road

Rail regulator, the Office of Rail and Road (ORR), has today (Thursday 30 October) approved Virgin Trains’ application for access to Temple Mills International depot. Access to Temple Mills is an important first step towards being able to operate cross border train services using the channel tunnel.

www.orr.gov.uk

(Archived ORR webpage)

“ORR set out its decision to approve Virgin Trains’ application, and reject applications from Evolyn, Gemini and Trenitalia, in a decision letter today. Informed by independent analysis, and having also considered Eurostar’s growth plans, the regulator considers that Virgin Trains has the strongest prospects of making the best use of capacity at Temple Mills.”

--
Message edited for accessibility purposes as requested by moderators

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

The ORR has made its decision on the use of spare maintenance capacity at Temple Mills depot in east London, for new Channel Tunnel services.
It has approved the Virgin proposal and turned down similar proposals from Eurostar (expansion), Evolyn, Gemini and Trenitalia.

This is the ORR decision letter to the applicants:

https://www.orr.gov.uk/sites/default/files/2025-10/2025-10-30-tmi-decision-letter-final.pdf

We have carefully considered four applications requesting access to TMI. We have also carefully considered submissions provided by the facility owner, Eurostar International Limited (EIL), concerning its planned use of TMI. The applications were made by Evolyn Mobility Limited (Evolyn), Virgin Trains Europe Holdings Limited (VTE), Gemini TOC Limited (Gemini) and Trenitalia France SAS (Trenitalia) and were submitted to us under section 17 of the Railways Act 1993 (the Act) between August 2024 and March 2025. 2. We have decided to approve the application from VTE on the basis that capacity at TMI is sufficient to accommodate the maintenance services VTE has applied to access and it has the strongest prospects of making best use of the capacity at TMI. We have rejected the applications from Evolyn, Gemini and Trenitalia on the basis that there is insufficient capacity at TMI to accommodate them in addition to VTE (and EIL’s own current use

So the way is now clear for Virgin Trains Europe to proceed to negotiate track, station and depot access for services to start in 2030, using Avelia Stream rolling stock.
Generally, Virgin's proposals were considered more robust and deliverable than those of the other new applicants, and had strong support from Alstom.

Two morsels mentioned in the ORR letter are that Virgin added the possibility of through running to Manchester* in recent submissions, and Siemens offered the prospect of train assembly in the UK for the Gemini proposal using Velaro trains.
There also appeared to be some technical issues with the Trenitalia rolling stock proposal (with Hitachi trains).

* any suggestion of reaching Manchester would imply using UK-gauge trains.

 

[vuzzeho]

I’m surprised it’s not Trenitalia, but I’m glad it’s someone. I have hope for Virgin, and I’m excited to see competition finally. Maybe the other contenders will use a continental depot until that other one planned for the UK is built?

 

[332 > 444]

As long as they are made to stop at Stratford, Ebbsfleet and Ashford otherwise we'll have a carbon copy of Eurostar!

 

[Ellwill]

I’m surprised it’s not Trenitalia, but I’m glad it’s someone. I have hope for Virgin, and I’m excited to see competition finally. Maybe the other contenders will use a continental depot until that other one planned for the UK is built?

In the case of Trenitalia and Evolyn, ORR is under the impression that their intended services wouldn't have met train length requirements for the Chunnel, and that out of the four applicants Virgin's plans were the most detailed and therefore more feasible to implement.

 

[Gwr12345]

Stratford

Does Stratford even have any facilities for border control considering they've never been used? And would the platforms need to be lowered again?

 

[TheWierdOne]

Reading the decision letter, it seems a lot of basis of decision was about 202m length of units, which when coupled would exceed the 400m depot road (and if not coupled would utilise 2 roads).

https://www.orr.gov.uk/sites/default/files/2025-10/2025-10-30-tmi-decision-letter-final.pdf

The letter does list the proposed services and unit types in the annex for each of the 4 applicants. The basis for the choice seems to be some sort of (unspecified) weighting of pros and cons of each application.

What I can't fathom is unless Eurostar has ordered shortened trains, the standard double deck Avelia Horizon are 202m long, so rejecting bids on basis of trains being 200-202m long seems irrational. Even more odd when section 23 of the annex refers to a new 4 road 415m maintenance shed for Eurostar (of course if Eurostar can invest in buildings, not clear why others couldn't extend a building a few metres)

The lawyers will have fun with this.

From a technical standpoint would it be overly difficult to lop 2 metres off of an existing platform by removing say one set of seats from each end carriage? Having said that Hitachi and EMR seem to have had a fair bit of difficulty with the shortened Class 810s.

There is a lot of spicy new information in the letter regarding what has been going on which I will summarise shortly

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

As long as they are made to stop at Stratford, Ebbsfleet and Ashford otherwise we'll have a carbon copy of Eurostar!

Virgin say they will stop at Ashford if the station reopens for cross-Channel services.
No mention of Ebbsfleet or Stratford.

 

[BRX]

Where does this leave Eurostar's own plans for expansion?

 

[popeter45]

Congratulations to virgin, good to finally have solid steps to competition

Curious as to what will be all the public reactions, especially from Eurostar

 

[Trainbike46]

Reading the decision letter, it seems a lot of basis of decision was about 202m length of units, which when coupled would exceed the 400m depot road (and if not coupled would utilise 2 roads).

https://www.orr.gov.uk/sites/default/files/2025-10/2025-10-30-tmi-decision-letter-final.pdf

The letter does list the proposed services and unit types in the annex for each of the 4 applicants. The basis for the choice seems to be some sort of (unspecified) weighting of pros and cons of each application.

What I can't fathom is unless Eurostar has ordered shortened trains, the standard double deck Avelia Horizon are 202m long, so rejecting bids on basis of trains being 200-202m long seems irrational. Even more odd when section 23 of the annex refers to a new 4 road 415m maintenance shed for Eurostar (of course if Eurostar can invest in buildings, not clear why others couldn't extend a building a few metres)

The lawyers will have fun with this.

Thanks for sharing the letter - lots of interesting stuff in there. I would be very surprised if Eurostar, at least, doesn't initiate a legal challenge, and could see some of the other contenders start some.

Though from the letter it does appear there are good reasons to prefer Eurostar, Trenitalia, and Virgin over Gemini or Evolyn, I am less convinced by the arguments that made them prefer Virgin over Eurostar or Trenitalia.

In the longer term, if a second depot does open, would Eurostar be forced to use two depots in the UK if their growth plans go ahead, or could they tell virgin to move to the new depot, and use TMI just for their own services again? Both options seem to have drawbacks.

 

[Class 466]

Does Stratford even have any facilities for border control considering they've never been used? And would the platforms need to be lowered again?

Nope, all that space was pretty much instantly repurposed for offices/training rooms. Not impossible to change it back but I think Stratford International ever actually seeing international services is a long shot.

 

[sh24]

Interested to see how station capacity will work at St Pancras.

 

[TheWierdOne]

Congratulations to virgin, good to finally have solid steps to competition

Curious as to what will be all the public reactions, especially from Eurostar

Inarticulate Gallic screams of rage from SNCF no doubt, followed by a deluge of lawyers letters, a solemn declaration by the French minister for Transport that this constitutes a step back in British-French relations, escalating to a pitched re-enactment of the Race to the North (1888/1895) whereby Eurostar and Virgin progressively increase their speeds to reduce journey times in a frantic attempt to outdo each other, culminating in one or both companies digging a clandestine second Channel Tunnel that is more direct than the original, while also running a stealthy political campaign of dirty tricks to convince passengers that their rivals trains are infested with bedbugs and substandard alcoholic beverages. (I'll let you all decide where the sarcasm starts)

 

[Ellwill]

Where does this leave Eurostar's own plans for expansion?

It could be a spanner in the works for them. Quoting the decision letter:

Given the wide public interest in the development of competition, our duty to promote it, and the duty of depot facility owners to grant access to other operators, we consider there should be a high bar for the quality of evidence to demonstrate that capacity cannot be made available. We remain of the view that sufficient capacity can be made available, noting that doing so is likely to require EIL to revisit its plans.

 

[pdeaves]

Virgin say they will stop at Ashford if the station reopens.

Potential to 'get stuck in a loop' and not do anything. They will stop if the station reopens. The station won't reopen if no one's using it... Opportunity for lots of happy words without definite commitment/action. Naturally, we're only in very early days at present and things can change.

 

[Snow1964]

Though from the letter it does appear there are good reasons to prefer Eurostar, Trenitalia, and Virgin over Gemini or Evolyn, I am less convinced by the arguments that made them prefer Virgin over Eurostar or Trenitalia.

Yes I agree.
Reading the letter again the only thing that appears to be in Eurostars favour is they have experience of running current service and have committed to buying some trains (even though they could be deployed on ex-Thayls services instead, so train order argument is weak)

Trenitalia clearly have lots of experience of running International high speed trains too, and also have options on an existing order. I too cannot really see why Virgin was preferred ahead of Trenitalia.

Evolyn appears to have suffered by not submitting loads of extra information (but should an application really be based on number of pages of info, even if some is consultant written padded waffle, instead of just key points). Their other mistake seems to be advising they would get Siemens E320 after the deadline (edit it is new velaro novos)

 

[williamn]

As long as they are made to stop at Stratford, Ebbsfleet and Ashford otherwise we'll have a carbon copy of Eurostar!

Not necessarily - even if they operate on the same routes they can still innovate on service (not hard to beat eurostar there) and price.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 30 Oct 2025 ==

I’m surprised it’s not Trenitalia, but I’m glad it’s someone. I have hope for Virgin, and I’m excited to see competition finally. Maybe the other contenders will use a continental depot until that other one planned for the UK is built?

I believe the UK is investigating the possibility of building an additional one?

 

[TheWierdOne]

Evolyn appears to have suffered by not submitting loads of extra information (but should an application really be based on number of pages of info, even if some is consultant written padded waffle, instead of just key points). Their other mistake seems to be advising they would get Siemens E320 after the deadline (although as these type are currently operated, probably least risky from certification point of view).

Evolyn is not proposing to use E320s, they announced they would use Velaro Novos which are a currently unproven platform used only in a Deutsche Bahn test train.

 

[Masbroughlad]

So, this isn't the right to run channel tunnel services? Just the preferred user for a depot? Obvious positive in a bid to run international trains.

The other parties can still bid but just propose alternative depot facilities?.If Virgin don't get the right to run services, what happens to the Temple Mill capacity? It all seems a bit messy!

Wouldn't it be better to make depot access an integral part of running cross-channel trains out of St. Pancras?

Am I missing something?! (Polite answers only!).

 

[Scanderina]

So, this isn't the right to run channel tunnel services? Just the preferred user for a depot? Obvious positive in a bid to run international trains.

The other parties can still bid but just propose alternative depot facilities?.If Virgin don't get the right to run services, what happens to the Temple Mill capacity? It all seems a bit messy!

Wouldn't it be better to make depot access an integral part of running cross-channel trains out of St. Pancras?

Am I missing something?! (Polite answers only!).

The main thing you're missing is that there is ample capacity available in the Channel Tunnel and the High Speed 1 link to St Pancras. Yes there is a capacity constraint at St Pancras, but LSPH/HS1 Ltd does at least have a plan for this.

All of which means that depot access is really the key bottleneck.

 

[NCT]

My reading is ORR considers Virgin and Trenitalia's submissions to be at similar levels of preparedness, but Virgin's proposed 20 return trips a day to multiple destinations is favoured to Trenitatlia's proposed 10 return trains a day only to Paris.

 

[BahrainLad]

Manchester?

 

[daveo]

Manchester?

Yes ... it's a little place outside London!

 

[AdamWW]

Yes ... it's a little place outside London!

Which used to have a depot nearby with a big "Le Eurostar habite ici" sign on it.
But of course it never did live there.