Put all the rhetoric to one side. In announcing today they are ordering 30 Alstom Avelia Horizon (TGV-M) double decker trains (see the FT here), with only options for 20 more, Eurostar is being less ambitious than has been rumoured for more than a year, where the talk was of an order of 50 trains.
What’s going on?
Look at Eurostar’s existing fleet and structuring the order this way is perhaps sensible.
Eurostar merged in 2023 with Thalys, and it is the ex-Thalys trains that operate only in Continental Europe that are most in need of replacement. It has 9 200m long PBA trains, and 17 200m long PBKA trains in that fleet, so 26 trains in total. The order of 30 200m long Avelia Horizon is just basically replacing the ex-Thalys fleet, with an extra route Amsterdam-Geneva also to be worked on.
In other words, what Eurostar is ordering here might never be used in the Channel Tunnel.
For Channel Tunnel routes Eurostar’s 17 400m long Siemens e320 trains are only a decade old, so will continue to run for many years yet. But Eurostar also has 8 remaining 400m long e300 TMST trains that are reaching the end of their life, and given the Avelia Horizon trains are 200m long you would need 16 trains to replace those e300s, plus ideally a few more for suggested route expansions from London to Frankfurt and Geneva. So the 20 extra trains option in the order with Alstom covers that.
The problem is that currently we do not know how Avelia Horizon can be made to be compatible with the Channel Tunnel’s evacuation rules (Note that by contrast in its submission to ORR about the single deck Avelia Stream (PDF, page 6), Virgin states “The trains will be configured to meet Channel Tunnel safety and fire requirements”).
It could then eventually be the case that, in a few years, Eurostar is left having to order something else to replace the e300s on Channel Tunnel routes, leaving it with the situation it has today – a Continental Europe fleet, and a Channel Tunnel fleet. Had Eurostar, from the off, been politically able to order something other than Avelia Horizon (other options are explained here) then this problem might have been easier to overcome.
[Update 14:30]
A few people have pointed me to Eurostar‘s press release saying the whole Avelia Horizon fleet will be maintained at Temple Mills. Eh come on. They don’t even maintain their entire existing Channel Tunnel fleet there (they also use Forest (Bruxelles) and Le Landy (Paris)). This looks to me like nothing more than a crass last minute effort to get the Office for Rail and Road to keep competitors out of Temple Mills depot.
And do tell me why I should trust Eurostar here? Cazenave this morning said to the FT one reason they went for this type was to get it quicker than other types. The *very opposite* is true.
If you read the Eurostar press release, it clearly says that these new trains will be stabled at Temple Mills, the entire fleet to be precise.
Which means they WILL run through the channel tunnel, and at the very least replace the e300 trains, the very ones you argue will NOT be displaced by this order.
I have my sources, thanks. And I trust those sources more than some rubbish Eurostar puts in a press release. This maintenance thing is just a game with ORR.
Good point tbf, missed that
You have pointed out that Virgin chose its new trains first. Therefore, it is probable that Eurostars’s (alleged) purchase of locomotive trains, and (aledged) 100% stabling at Temple Mills were just meant just as a spoiler! Sorry I can’t keep up with these pseudo Greek names for new trains 😂