What's going on?
A handful of media outlets, including the UK's Daily Mail, have been reporting that train routes between the UK and mainland Europe could be about to get a little bit simpler.
For the first time ever, rail passengers may be able to take a direct train from London to several cities in western Germany, including Cologne, Düsseldorf, Dortmund and Aachen, Connexion France reported on Tuesday.
The train route would be an extension of existing Eurostar routes that currently run from London to Brussels, Paris, Lille, Amsterdam and Rotterdam, the French news site explained.
They added that the direct train to Cologne would take around five and a half hours.
If the reports are true, it would be the first direct train from the UK to Germany in the history of Eurostar.
At the moment, passengers travelling between London and Germany by train generally have to change in Brussels from a Eurostar to an ICE train. People going anywhere other than western Germany would have to change trains again - usually once they reach Cologne.
READ ALSO: How to explore Germany by train with the €9 ticket
Is this definitely going to happen?
Despite the optimism of Connexion France and the Daily Mail, it doesn't seem like anything like this has been officially announced just yet.
However, there has been one significant change that could make these new routes possible.
Previously, different stretches of the railway network between London and Germany were operated by two different rail operators.
Eurostar connects the UK to Paris, Brussels and Amsterdam via the Channel Tunnel, while French operator Thalys runs a number of routes between France, the Netherlands, Germany and Belgium. This made it difficult to run a direct train between the two.
Since 2019, however, the two companies have been attempting to merge into a single company called Eurostar Group.
Once it's fully established, the Group will connect two high-speed rail networks spanning five countries - the UK, France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany - and make it possible to offer rapid, direct routes from London to several German cities.
The merger was pushed back amid the pandemic but was finally granted approval from the European Commission back in March, who found that it wasn't in breach of its competition laws.
France's state-owned operator SNCF held majority stakes in both Eurostar and Thalys and is now in the process of merging the two entities.
READ MORE: How will Germany’s €9 travel ticket work?
What's likely to change after the merger?
According to a spokesperson for Eurostar, the first item on the agenda is a joint loyalty programme. This means customers can "benefit from more upgrades, discounts and complimentary journeys with early access to partner offers as well as lounges and other personalised benefits".
Another benefit is likely to be improved ticketing and scheduling across the network.
There's also speculation around whether we could see a whole host of new Eurostar routes, including direct trains from London to Cologne, Bordeaux, and to Belgian cities such as Antwerp and Liège.
However, a spokesperson for Eurostar told Connexion France that it was "too early" to confirm any dates for new routes.
On a broader scale, the companies are hoping the introduction of faster, smoother train journeys across Europe will encourage customers to transition away from cheap air travel to a more eco-friendly option.
"The challenge of climate change and the demand for eco-responsible travel calls for an ambitious response," said Guillaume Pepy, chairman of SNCF. "Bringing together the strengths of Eurostar and Thalys [is] a powerful response to this challenge. High speed is an opportunity for Europe, and Europe is an opportunity for high speed."
Under the moniker of Project Green Speed, one of the goals of the merger is for the Eurostar Group to increase its passenger numbers to 30 million per year by 2032 - up from 18 million in 2019.
READ ALSO: How to find cheap rail tickets in Germany
Would new direct trains create issues with immigration controls?
It's a good question, and something that the Eurostar Group would no doubt have to consider when changing routes around.
At the moment, passport checks for Eurostar are done at the point of departure, for example at St. Pancras in London or at Gare du Nord in Paris. That means there'd be no issues with controls when heading from the UK to Germany, but there could be issues on a return journey.
Writing about the merger and possible new train routes, the UK's Daily Mail speculated that people may have to leave the train at Brussels to pass through border controls if a direct route were set up from Germany to the UK.
Another option, of course, is to set up border controls at Cologne's central train station and check passports there upon departure to the UK.
READ ALSO: Does transit through Germany’s neighbours affect Brexit 90-day rule?
When could the new routes be in action?
It's still unclear whether the direct UK to Germany route is even a definite plan for the newly merged company, but if it does happen, it's likely to take some time.
A spokesperson to SNCF, the parent company of Eurostar Group, said that the initial priority for the company would be increasing the number of services on the busiest lines across Europe.
"Eurostar Group and the stakeholders are thinking of increasing the capacities and answer to customer demand, where Thalys and Eurostar are already present," she said. "At the end, we will study the possibility of launching new routes. But nothing is decided for the moment."
It seems that things like the joint loyalty programme, ticketing and scheduling issues are priorities for Eurostar Group in the early months.
Once these parts of the merger are done, they could start looking into whether Thalys trains could head all the way to London or Eurostar trains could head all the way to Germany - and working out the practical details of it, like how border controls would work.
But fr now, it seems like it's yet another case of "wait and see".
Comments