RENFE, https://www.renfe.com/es/es the Spanish rail operator wants to increase its international portfolio. This is due to the Spanish domestic rail market now being open to competition.. It already operates the Haramain high speed line in Saudi Arabia. Further, it also has a 50% interest in Leo Express, the Czech rail operator.
Following an unsuccessful bid to run domestic services in France, it has approached infrastructure managers managing the Eurostar https://www.eurostar.com/uk-en route. Specifically, Getlink, https://www.getlinkgroup.com/en/the Eurotunnel operator and HS1 https://highspeed1.co.uk/ who operate the high speed link London to Folkestone. RENFE intends to run a cross channel Paris – London service to compete with Eurostar. It sees this as providing an alternative route into the French domestic market.
The current proposal would involve building a fleet of at least seven train-sets, which would need to be approved for use through the Channel Tunnel. . RENFE have been advised there are train paths available and the capacity to operate cross-Channel services. Its demand analysis suggests that it would be viable and profitable to compete with Eurostar. RENFE already use Siemens Valero trains, the same family as those used by Eurostar.
RENFE said there were 9 million trips between Paris and London in 2019, 7 million of those by Eurostar. Traffic was growing before the pandemic, and RENFE expects ridership to recover next year. The proposed service is expected to be profitable from the fourth year, A second phase would see services extended to further destinations in France and beyond. This phase would likely include Barcelona given RENFE’s concurrent plans to run services between Paris, the South of France, Catalonia and Madrid. Since 2013, direct high speed train services have been running between France and Spain operated by both RENFE and French-owned SNCF.
This isn’t the first would be competitor to Eurostar. In October 2010, DB (German rail) ran a test train to St Pancras in anticipation of a service to the London Olympics 2 years later. The train would travel from London to Brussels dividing there to Amsterdam and Cologne. Due to economic and technical reasons DB in 2018 decided not to proceed.
