Virgin will be allowed to operate trains alongside Eurostar from 2030 to 2040, with up to 20 return journeys per day. The trains will depart from London St Pancras International and travel through the undersea rail link connecting the U.K. with northern France.<\/p>\n
Virgin owner Richard Branson, writing in October 2025 when Virgin won approval from the British regulator to use the Temple Mills International rail depot in East London, wrote: \u201cIt\u2019s time to end this 30-year monopoly and bring some Virgin magic to the cross-Channel route \u2026 Just as we\u2019ve challenged incumbents in the air, on the seas, and just as we\u2019ve led the UK rail market before \u2013 we\u2019re ready to do it all over again.\u201d<\/p>\n
The decision gives the project the green light on the British side, but the rail operator still needs to secure the necessary arrangements with its European partners, the British rail regulator clarified.<\/p>\n
\u201cVirgin Trains must also procure rolling stock, secure access to other rail networks, and obtain safety approvals from ORR and the relevant authorities in the EU,\u201d the press release said.<\/p>\n
In October, Branson said Virgin was working with Alstom and planned to order 12 Avelia Stream trains.<\/p>\n
This article has been updated.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Virgin will be allowed to operate trains alongside Eurostar from 2030 to 2040, with up to 20 return…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":147583,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[104],"tags":[211,210,234,1197,294],"class_list":["post-147582","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brussels","tag-belgium","tag-brussels","tag-france","tag-the-netherlands","tag-united-kingdom"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@dk\/117113247961241201","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147582","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=147582"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147582\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/147583"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=147582"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=147582"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=147582"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}