There's a report in the
Journal de Dimanche today saying the channel tunnel company (currently called Getlink, for some reason) is looking into low-cost train services. I can't see it yet on the English-language continental sites, but presumably they will cover it soon.
The idea is to avoid some of the costs - high access charges on high-speed lines, fancy trains, staffing above the minimum, and using main terminals (if that costs more as well as being hard to get). So a slower service between, it suggests, Roissy CDG and Stratford could cost 25-30% less.
On a related (if only a bit) topic, I'd missed that DB have renounced any plans to operate direct trains through the tunnels any time soon. This was
in the Independent on June 16th:
Germany’s state rail operator has shelved plans for international high-speed services between London, Cologne and Frankfurt due to “changes” in the “economic environment”, The Independent has learned.
Deutsche Bahn (DB) said the services to London would now “not be on the agenda in the foreseeable future”, despite just last year saying they were “still interested”.
The company would neither confirm nor deny whether uncertainty caused by floundering Brexit talks had played a part in their decision to mothball the project, saying they did not want to wade into politics.
DB had already begun early preparations to run the trains, successfully obtaining an operating certificate to run services through the Channel Tunnel in 2013 and even going as far as to display one of its sleek InterCity Express (ICE) units at London St Pancras to drum up publicity.
DB were also quoted as saying:
“The decisive factors are technical and economic reasons: the ICE BR 407 is not yet registered in Belgium and the economic environment has changed significantly as a result of the price competition with low-cost airlines.
Not very convincing, is it? I could believe our old friend "uncertainty over the various effects of Brexit", though.
