OK, we have three pieces of “news” to go on – a story from The Times, a Richard Branson column in The Times, and this from Rail Magazine – that Virgin Trains is to order 12 high speed trains from Alstom.
The central point: Virgin Trains is one of three companies (Evolyn/Trenitalia and Gemini are the other two) that wants to rival Eurostar on long distance high speed routes through the Channel Tunnel. This autumn the UK’s Office for Rail and Road will adjudicate which operator, if any, will be granted access to the Temple Mills depot in east London to maintain its trains for these services, and this Virgin news should be seen in that light – it is essentially “if we, Virgin Trains, are allocated the capacity at Temple Mills, this is what we plan to do”.
That is also the most plausible explanation for the words “binding agreement” in the Rail Magazine piece, and “Virgin has “secured binding exclusivity” with Alstom for a dozen Avelia Stream trains” in The Times. If we get the capacity, we order.
But that is only the tip of the iceberg.
This news from Virgin throws up as many additional questions as it answers.
As far as I know, no other operator has even been considering Alstom Avelia Stream. Eurostar, the incumbent, is supposed to favour another Alstom product – the double deck Avelia Horizon rather than the single deck Stream. And my assumption is that Evolyn/Trenitalia would only consider Hitachi, and my best guess was that Gemini would consider Hitachi and/or Siemens, as both Hitachi and Siemens designs are proven and the order book for both companies comparatively short.
While Alstom’s website is rather unclear on the point – it lumps very different ex-Bombardier and ex-Alstom Italy products under the Stream label – this train for Virgin would be essentially a souped up non-tilting Pendolino design. The closest equivalents are the ED250 running in Poland and ETR 675 for Italo in Italy, but those have a maximum speed of 250km/h. We know a 300km/h version of this train is in the works, because French high speed startup Kevin Speed intends to buy them, and to secure paths on French high speed lines, 300km/h is a must. But choosing Stream is a risk – these designs have not yet been approved to run in France (and French legacy signalling system TVM430 is going to be needed), and when the new 300km/h version is going to be available is not known.
The news from Virgin also poses a question for Eurostar – as despite it being rumoured for 15 months now, there is no news of a contract being signed by the incumbent operator for new trains. And if Virgin is to go with Alstom, why the single deck design rather than the double deck Avelia Horizon? And does that decision made by Virgin possibly give us reason to think Eurostar might have an issue with the double deck design as well – perhaps due to delivery delays, and being behind SNCF (115 trains), Proxima (12) and ONCF (18)?
And then there are the trains themselves. Stream is normally a 7 carriage, 187m long design (extending each carriage could get you close to 200m) – but anyway you need 2 coupled together to get a train the same capacity as a Eurostar e320 that’s close to 400m. So a fleet of 12 Stream trains is equivalent to 6 Eurostars. You cannot really offer very much with a fleet that size, although you could conceivably maintain all of them at Temple Mills and not need maintenance in France or Belgium.
And then Virgin says in The Times that it intends to run to Paris, Bruxelles and Amsterdam, with the idea to expand further in future. And makes no mention of interim stops. Which is peculiar, as one of the biggest upsides of the Stream design is fast boarding (single deck) and swift acceleration (many powered axles) – so stops in Ebbsfleet or Ashford would be easier with this type of train than with a double deck design with few doors and few powered axles.
So that’s what today’s news deciphered. If more facts about all of this emerge I will update the blog post accordingly!
[Update 22.8.2025, 08:00]
Paragraph about length of Alstom Avelia Stream updated and clarified.
Interesting analysis as ever, thanks.
With regards to the double deck Avelia Horizon, the wiki page says the capacity of a 202m length unit is 634, or 740 in high capacity layout. Thus, double that to make it the 404m length means between 1200 and 1500 passengers depending on what facilities there are on board, class seating layouts, luggage racks, toilets, cafes, bars perhaps, and can one dream of cycle racks, etc.?
With St Pancras destined to process 5000 pax/hr by 2028, would this limit the number of trains that can be filled, particularly these double decker trains? What would be the profitable breakeven point? Do they need to fill them completely? Otherwise, if they do intend to fill them completely, it means that only about four Avelia Horizon train’s worth of passengers per hour can be processed. Perhaps that’s ideal, but perhaps not? How would that integrate with Le Shuttle and Javelin services?
And I know Stratford International is contentious… with a track layout that hinders turning back 400m trains. Can it be reworked to incorporate switches at distances that make turning around easier?
Otherwise, much as I love the idea of these high capacity double deck Avelia Horizon potentially bringing us lower cost train travel to the European mainland, will they ever be viable? And could two operators opt for them? Or could even one operator? Would any sensible operator prefer a mixed fleet of single and double deckers? And thus easier for the incumbent Eurostar perhaps as it already has the e320s, but perhaps a riskier choice for a new operator looking for a simplified fleet and operations whilst maximising profits?
And will there be a stipulation for taking a certain number of bikes on these new services? And not have to pay £50 or whatever ridiculous sum?
I don’t disagree with any of these points, but I think you are seeing this backwards.
It is more: Eurostar is 55% owned and de facto controlled by SNCF. That is the French state owned railway company. And they buy from Alstom. Avelia Horizon / TGV-M is the new flagship product, so that is what Eurostar would buy. (Remember: when Eurostar bought the Siemens trains the UK still had a 25% share of Eurostar, that it sold in 2015 to Quebec pension funds).
So does a 400m long double deck train make sense for the Channel Tunnel? I am not sure, for all sorts of reasons. But that might well end up being what’s used – because of the Alstom and SNCF logic.
Tangent: the Avelia Stream is most likely built in Savigliano (Italy) or if not there then Wroclaw or Salzgitter. The amount of French engineering in it is much lower. For that reason I cannot see Eurostar buying that.
As I understand it the double deck Avelia Horizon (such as the TGV-M) will not be approved for access in the Netherlands as the relatively high platforms and low entrance level of the train will cause a need for passengers to “step down” into the trains from the platform. This issue is something you have written about yourself.
If the above is true, or cannot be overcome somehow, it makes sense to me then that if Virgin wants to run trains to Paris, Brussels and Amsterdam from London that they aquire trains that can access all markets they want to access.
It’s a valid point, but I *think* it’s not the reason. Eurostar thinks there’s no problem with TGV-M in Netherlands as the TGV-M they reportedly want to order would run in Netherlands. Are they wrong and Virgin right? I can hardly believe that.
There’s also the issue that Stream is not step free to board from any platform height – you need a lift or ramp to board it. Although Netherlands has less problem with steps up than steps down I think.
The Pendolino is normally a 7 carriage, 187 m long design.
DB pushed the 7-car consist to 200 m with the ICE4 (and Siemens with the Velaro novo), but I’m not certain such 29m long cars would fit the loading gauge in France (which is narrower as in Germany afaik).
So it’s not impossible that Alstom goes for the 25m car, as using 8 of those is the standard for HSTs. However in its press releases, Kevin Speed said their trains will have 7 cars.
Also a step free boarding is possible, with a low floor car like in the nordic ex-Bombardier Avelia Stream variants. However the platform height is not the same in the concerned stations…
I didn’t realize that CDPQ is now a shareholder of both Eurostar (19%) and Alstom (17%).
In one of the news stories about this Virgin order it was stated these will be 7 carriage units. My understanding of the French loading gauge issue is that it is about total height, so maybe it works with 29m long carriages still? But that at least explains for you why I stated 7 carriages here. I will edit the post with your point about the ETR 675 length.
Re. a low floor carriage – due to the body shape designed to be narrow so as to tilt (that this version will not have) it might hence be tricky to engineer in a 76cm floor section. Not impossible I suppose. But I have read nothing that this is the intention. Also be aware that post-Pendolino Stream is mainly intended for countries with 55cm entry (Switzerland, Italy) so how committed would Alstom be to making a 76cm platform version?
Hi Jon,
I thought the critical point for any additional service from London to the continent was capacity for dedicated platforms at the stations on the continent, providing space for bagagge checks, passport and visa controls, etc.
Would Virgin plan to share the same facilities that Eurostars uses? Has Eurostar agreed to that? I don’t think the train stations (Gare du Nord, Gare de Midi, Amsterdam CS) have the capacity to host additional train operators with dedicated facilities on dedicated platforms. What do you think?
It’s not, or not really. Gare du Nord in Paris and Midi in Bruxelles can each take an extra train an hour. It is only Amsterdam / Rotterdam that give me cause for concern, especially Amsterdam – where terminal throughput is low. I’d be surprised if anything more than the train every two hours from Amsterdam were possible as a result of that, and that means Virgin could do 2 trains a day, basically filling the slots Eurostar does not use. Possibly three if they ran a super early or super late train. And yes, Virgin plans to use the same infra as Eurostar.