Italy's state railways to challenge Eurostar with London-Paris train services

Of all the announced Eurostar competitors this is the only one I give a chance of sucsess. Trenitalia has the train, the experience and the money to pull this off.

Trenitalia also has already been successful with other business partners in Spain setting up the Iryo train company.
Look for those Eurostar ticket prices to come down in 2029!

In other Italian-type train news, Thibault at Simply Railway is reporting that the Paris-Milan line has reopened with service from both Trenitalia and SNCF.

And apparently Trenitalia is going to be running a service INSIDE France soon, I believe he said Paris-Lyon.

Trenitalia is already running Paris Lyon, and has been for some time. They plan on running Paris - Marseille from this summer.

Before any other operator can run through the Channel Tunnel depot capacity on the UK side is required.

Temple Mills is the only available depot which Eurostar say is working to full capacity.

A lot of work is ongoing currently to ascertain what capacity is actually available. This is the current state of play regarding that work- https://www.orr.gov.uk/sites/default/files/2025-03/ipex-temple-mills-depot-independent-capacity-assessment-2025.pdf

Why would they need depot capacity in the UK? They can just start with a Paris - London in the morning, do a few trips out and back, and end with a London - Paris. That way they do not need stabling in the UK.

Because the early trains from either end of the route, and their evening counterparts are key revenue generators. If any operator can't provide such services they may as well not bother because they are providing a useless service.
Running ECS positioning workings to and from Paris in the early hours of the morning would be idiotic operationally and financially.

Currently the rail regulator in the UK is not minded to consider any of the applications until the depot question is resolved, whatever other merits they may or may not have.

North Pole depot is no longer available, nor are the original regional Eurostar depots at Glasgow, Manchester or Liverpool.

No one in the UK has even mentioned whether there is a similar depot capacity issue at the French end.I

translating railway jargon ECS - empty coaching stock, in other words crew only without passengers

they could however turn that empty train into an inexpensive red-eye to Paris and go from a loss maker to a profit centre

or run around North London and stable but not depot a set at Wembley or Bletchley. Plenty of capacity at both at the mo.

The problem with stabling somewhere else than Temple Mills is that European trains do not fit the UK loading gauge. You can't get to Bletchley with a FR1000.
They also made the mistake when designing the Stratford International station in putting the domestic platforms in the middle, and the international ones at the outside. That means you cannot reverse a international train there. Otherwise using Stratford as an alternative to st. Pancras would be possible.

I was listening to Simon Calder of the Independent today interviewing the boss of the renamed HS1 - London St Pancras High Speed - which certainly trips off the tongue - who said that currently HS1 between St Pancras and the Tunnel is under 50 percent capacity, and the Tunnel has four paths hourly each way for passenger trains and is using only 2, and there are ways to increase that to 5 paths per hour, and he also said that basically disused Arrivals area at St Pancras could easily be turned into additional Departures space.

So there are certainly plenty of noises. Never know!!

I don't know about the Primrose Hill line being in gauge or not. But between Wembley and Manchester via Crewe should in theory be in gauge as I'm sure we had the odd Regional Eurostar on shed at Longsight, Manchester for a time.
The ECML is or was gauge cleared from Kings Cross to Leeds and York- I remember travelling on the Regional sets to Leeds when they were briefly used for domestic services.
We do have international freight trains, which I assume use the Primrose Hill link. Just two nights ago I saw a train of SNCF container flat wagons at Carlisle.

Regarding the difference in gauge between different rail systems, I vaguely recall that the Swiss (and perhaps others) have variable gauge rolling stock that can change gauge "on the fly" between different rail systems. I'm not sure if that would be possible in this case, or not?

It won't. The problem here is loading gauge, not track gauge.

The first generation Eurostars (The so called TMST sets) were build to UK loading Gauge. They could run anywhere in the UK, and that is why, when the Regional Eurostar did not materialise some of the sets intended for that were used on the ECML.

You will notice if you have a closer look at them that they have "narrower at the bottom" profile that is typical for UK rolling stock.

Then newer Eurostar sets (the e320) are Siemens Velaro sets (similar to DB's ICE-3) and these are built to (Continental) European loading gauge, and thus cannot circulate beyond HS1, and the spur to Temple Mills.

Trenitalia intends to use FR1000 trains, and these are build to European loading gauge as well. Trenitalia has a bunch of those FR1000 already, and has more on order. That is why they are currently the only real contender to compete with Eurostar. Contrary to all the others that have announced plans they actually have trains.

The first generation Eurostars (The so called TMST sets) were build to UK loading Gauge. They could run anywhere in the UK, and that is why, when the Regional Eurostar did not materialise some of the sets intended for that were used on the ECML.

There is no such thing as UK loading gauge. There are a number of loading gauges. Even the first generation trains could not have run on my local line (even at the time) as we have a particularly narrow loading gauge, due to several tight bridges and platform clearances. They still can't.
In the days of slam door trains we had special narrow bodied trains with bars on all doors. so tight was bridge clearance.
Even today none of Northern's most recent trains have been cleared to run in passenger service on the line. It will take a lot of money and effort to allow that to happen. They ran out of service after the Grange over Sands accident, but had to route through Workington for instance on the through line, not the platform line due to doubts on platform clearance.
This is a very esoteric subject, way beyond this forum.
My understanding, as a UK resident, is that the Regional Trains were only cleared to run via Crewe to Manchester, not Stoke on Trent (maybe because Crewe was a scheduled stop for the Continent). And the original trains are known not to have been able to run north of York due to issues at Newcastle on Tyne.

There is no such thing as UK loading gauge.

Strictly speaking there is no such thing as a continental loading gauge either. There is a standard "go anywhere" gauge and most single level HSTs are build to that nowadays, but this is still to wide for most of the UK.

Now if only Beeching hadn't shut down the Great Central...

Aside from the train nerd stuff, it might be worth noting that Trenitalia in partnership with First Group trade as Avanti West Coast as the main operator for services between London and Glasgow. They seem to do a decent enough job. First Trenitalia Avanti West Coast is too wordy for the Paypal receipt I noticed :)

As an aside, has it been mentioned that there's virtually no direct services between London and Glasgow for much of May? I'm taking an Avanti West Coast train to Motherwell on May 1st, but I'm having to return from Edinburgh on a Lumo service on the 5th.

It is only the two Bank Holiday weekends and the intervening weekends when there are no Anglo Scottish WCML trains.
The other weekdays are not affected.
There is work at Gretna junction and a new bridge build at Carstairs apparently.
You should see the elaborate bus queue arrangements at Carlisle with six queue lines set up- Edinburgh, Glasgow fast, Glasgow slow, Dumfries, Preston express and Preston all stations.
On most of the weekends TPE are running south of Carlisle, but Avanti are turning at Preston due to having no train crew facilities or shore based food depot at Carlisle, also an alleged lack of siding space.

Hmm... yes. No trains direct on the 5th. I was sure there wasn't any on the 6th when I looked either. There seems to be tickets available now. Maybe I was having a senior moment. Anyway, it's actually the 6th I'm coming back to London and I'm on a Lumo train back to Kings Cross, a journey I haven't done for years. I was planning to jump on a train for Edinburgh at Uddingston early and have a few hours in town before my train at 16:13. It will be a nice opportunity to visit Edinburgh, something else I haven't done for some time.