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(By Michael Evers, dpa)
More trains will soon be travelling to new destinations on the European mainland through the Channel Tunnel between Britain and France.
Getlink, the operator of the now 30-year-old tunnel, is planning to create the technical conditions for competing railway companies to be able to travel to new destinations from London, the company said in Paris.
This includes the German rail operator Deutsche Bahn, which is still aiming to run its high-speed ICE trains directly to London, something it has wanted to do for many years.
To date, only high-speed passenger trains operated by the Franco-British company Eurostar have travelled through the tunnel.
“Transport between London and the mainland through the Eurotunnel remains of fundamental interest to Deutsche Bahn (DB),” a DB spokesman told dpa.
DB’s international long-distance traffic is showing high-growth rates and the trend in traffic to Britain is also in favour of environmentally friendly rail transport.
At present, however, both routes and trains are not yet equipped with an end-to-end European Train Control System (ETCS), said the DB spokesman.
“The approval of our ICE trains for Belgium, northern France and England depends on this equipment.”
Further details on the timetable could only be provided once the schedule and the technical requirements for the track upgrades were transparent.
DB had originally planned to run its ICE trains from Frankfurt via Cologne, Brussels and Lille to London and back three times a day from 2013.
Years of disputes over safety requirements ultimately prevented this. The Spanish state-owned railway company Renfe was also repeatedly mentioned as another interested party in starting train services through the Channel Tunnel.
A few weeks ago, the tunnel operator Getlink announced accelerated efforts together with supervisory authorities and infrastructure operators to enable railway companies to launch new connections from London to the mainland within five years.
Connections from London to Cologne and Frankfurt, Geneva and Zurich were mentioned.
Specifically, this involves the standardization of norms for the tunnel and the trains as well as the preparation of new connections with the network operators and affected stations.
