{"id":544164,"date":"2025-11-02T12:35:12","date_gmt":"2025-11-02T12:35:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/544164\/"},"modified":"2025-11-02T12:35:12","modified_gmt":"2025-11-02T12:35:12","slug":"london-could-get-direct-trains-to-two-new-destinations-in-france","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/544164\/","title":{"rendered":"London Could Get Direct Trains to Two New Destinations in France"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last\u00a0week Virgin Trains was given the green light to move into\u00a0Eurostar\u2019s\u00a0rail depot in east London.<\/a>\u00a0If you weren\u2019t aware, that\u2019s a huge deal for cross-Channel travel.\u00a0Access to the\u00a0Temple Mills International depot means that Virgin is now on track to launch services from the UK<\/a> to Europe to compete with Eurostar. And that would open up a whole new world of opportunity.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Besides cheaper fares and potential direct routes from other parts of the UK, Virgin could also eventually run direct services from London St Pancras to Paris<\/a> Charles de Gaulle airport<\/strong>.\u00a0According to the\u00a0Standard, the\u00a0company is in talks with France\u2019s\u00a0busiest airport about the possibility of running services there.\u00a0<\/p>\n

When it announced that it had secured permission from the Office of Rail and Road to use the depot, Virgin said that once services to\u00a0Paris Gare du Nord, Brussels<\/a>-Midi and Amsterdam<\/a> Centraal (all stations already served by Eurostar) are established, it has \u2018ambitions to expand further across France<\/a>, and into Germany<\/a> and Switzerland<\/a>\u2019.<\/p>\n

Richard Branson, Virgin\u2019s founder, also said that he hopes to run trains\u00a0from St Pancras to Disneyland Paris<\/strong> on a limited basis. Eurostar stopped serving the theme park so that it could focus on core routes back in 2023. Branson said: \u2018I\u2019d like to go. I was just (thinking) I\u2019d like to bring my grandkids, but by the time we\u2019re there, they\u2019ll be bringing me, they\u2019ll be teenagers.<\/p>\n

\u2018But anyway, we should definitely do a day or two in Disneyland, even if it\u2019s not a regular service.\u2019<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s not get too carried away, though. Remember \u2013 the only thing that is actually confirmed\u00a0at this stage is that Virgin will be using the Temple Mills International rail depot. It still needs to build and test trains, and get approvals on things like track access and safety. If that all goes smoothly, the operator hopes to start running trains from London to Paris, Brussels and Amsterdam by 2030.<\/p>\n

Everything you need to know about Eurostar\u2019s new double-decker trains<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Plus:\u00a0a new affordable train service is launching between London and Glasgow \u2013 with tickets for less than \u00a334<\/a>.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Get the latest and greatest from the Big Smoke \u2013 from news and reviews to events and trends. Just\u00a0<\/strong>follow our Time Out London WhatsApp channel<\/strong><\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Stay in the loop: sign up for our\u00a0<\/strong>free Time Out London newsletter<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0for the best of the city, straight to your inbox.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Last\u00a0week Virgin Trains was given the green light to move into\u00a0Eurostar\u2019s\u00a0rail depot in east London.\u00a0If you weren\u2019t aware,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":544165,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7757],"tags":[748,6419,393,4884,257,6420,6417,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-544164","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-london","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-categories-things-to-do","10":"tag-england","11":"tag-great-britain","12":"tag-london","13":"tag-news-city-life","14":"tag-things-to-do","15":"tag-uk","16":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115480135442397883","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/544164","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=544164"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/544164\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/544165"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=544164"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=544164"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=544164"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}