Eurostar


Eurostar is an international high-speed rail service in Western Europe, connecting Belgium, France, Germany, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom through the Channel Tunnel.
The service is operated by the Eurostar Group which was formed from the merger of Eurostar, which operated trains through the Channel Tunnel to the United Kingdom, and Thalys which operated entirely within continental Europe.
Eurostar has transported over 400 million passengers since services began in 1994, including a record 20million passengers in 2025. The operator is exploring future network expansions and aims to double passenger numbers between 2022 and 2030.

History

Early planning and construction (1986-1993)

Proposals for a cross-Channel tunnel date back as early as 1802, but concerns over national security delayed development. The modern project was initiated following the 1986 Treaty of Canterbury between France and the UK, with the creation of Eurotunnel to manage and own the tunnel. Tunneling began in 1988.
In addition to the tunnel's shuttle trains carrying cars and lorries between Folkestone and Calais, the tunnel opened up the possibility of through passenger and freight train services between places further afield. British Rail and France's SNCF contracted with Eurotunnel to use half the tunnel's capacity for this purpose. In 1987, Britain, France and Belgium set up an International Project Group to specify a train to provide an international high-speed passenger service through the tunnel. French TGV technology was chosen as the basis for the new trains. An order for 30 trainsets, to be manufactured in France but with some British and Belgian components, was placed in December 1989.
France had been operating high-speed TGV services since 1981, and following the Treaty of Canterbury, began preparations for a new, high-speed line headed North from Paris, to speed up connections to the Tunnel, as well as to Brussels. The LGV Nord opened in 1993.
On 20 June 1993, the first Eurostar test train travelled through the tunnel to the UK. Various technical difficulties in running the new trains on British tracks were quickly overcome.
On 6 May 1994, the tunnel was officially opened by British sovereign, Elizabeth II, and the French President, François Mitterrand, at a final cost of £4.65billion.

Launch and early operations (1994-2002)

On 14 November 1994, Eurostar services began running from Waterloo International station in London, to Paris Nord, as well as Brussels-South railway station. The train service started with a limited Discovery service; the full daily service started from 28 May 1995, with a typical Waterloo-Paris Nord trip taking 2 hours and 55 minutes, and Eurostar achieving an average end-to-end speed of from London to Paris.
On 8 January 1996, Eurostar launched services from a second railway station in the UK with Ashford International, and on 29 June announced year-round services from London to Disneyland.
In 1997, Eurostar introduced services to the French Alps during the winter. On December 14, the Belgian HSL 1 opened, connecting Brussels to the French LGV Nord at Lille. The line was long, and brought down London-Brussels travel times by 45 minutes.
On 20 July 2002 a summer seasonal service from London to Avignon-Centre was launched.

High Speed 1 and St Pancras relocation (2003-2007)

The first decade of operations was somewhat rocky, with one commentator summarizing it thus:
Over the next few years, the gradual opening of the High Speed 1 tracks in the UK made Eurostar increasingly competitive with airlines on speed, and led to improvements in overall service. On 23 September 2003, passenger services began running on the first completed section of High Speed 1, with the full line open on November 14, 2007. Following a high-profile glamorous opening ceremony and a large advertising campaign, on 14 November 2007, Eurostar services in London transferred from Waterloo to the extended and extensively refurbished London St Pancras International. The redevelopment cost £800million notably to cope with the long Eurostar trains. From St Pancras, the journey to Paris Nord reached its current travel time of 2 hours and 15 minutes.

Network expansion (2008-2019)

On 1 May 2015, the operator launched a year-round service from London to Lyon, Avignon, and Marseille in southern France, replacing an earlier seasonal service to Avignon that had run from 2002 to 2014. The new service brought Lyon within 4.5 hours of London, Avignon within 6 hours and Marseille in 6.5 hours.
On 4 April 2018, Eurostar launched direct services from London to Amsterdam and Rotterdam, marking the first extension of Eurostar services to a new country since the original routes to France and Belgium in 1994. The service initially operated as a one-way journey, with return passengers required to change trains at Brussels until juxtaposed border controls could be established at Dutch stations; the full direct return service commenced on 26 October 2020.

COVID-19 pandemic impact (2020-2022)

The COVID-19 pandmic, and notably international travel restrictions, led to an existential crisis for Eurostar. By January 2021, Eurostar ridership went down to less than 1% of pre-pandemic levels.
During the covid-19 crisis, the company was "seen as French by the British government and as British by the French," meaning that it mostly did not benefit from state support given to airlines or other train companies. Indeed, even though Eurostar continued to be headquartered in London, the British had sold their stake in the company in 2015, leaving France's SNCF as the main shareholder. In the end, Eurostar was able to borrow £250mn from the French government, but was forced to also borrow £500mn from commercial lenders.
By the end of 2022, Eurostar had debts of €964m, but had finally returned to pre-covid ridership levels. In 2022/23, Eurostar returned to profitability. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, Eurostar has ended service to certain stations and routes, with a strategic focus on the most profitable routes.

Merger with Thalys (2019-2023)

On 27 September 2019, the heads of two of Eurostar's major shareholders, Guillaume Pepy of SNCF, and the chair of SNCB,, publicised that Eurostar was planning to come together with its sister company the Franco-Belgian transnational rail service Thalys. The arrangement is to merge their operations under the working title of "Green Speed" and expand services outside the core London-Paris-Brussels-Amsterdam service, to create a grand Western European high-speed rail service covering the UK, France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany, serving up to 30million customers by 2030.
In September 2020, the merger between Thalys and Eurostar International was confirmed, a year after Thalys announced its intention to merge with the cross-Channel provider subject to gaining European Commission clearance, to form "Green Speed". SNCF and SNCB already hold a controlling shareholding in Eurostar. In October 2021, it was announced that, following the completion of the merger, the Thalys brand would be discontinued, with all of the new operation's services to be operated under the Eurostar name but with each service's own liveries.
In October 2023, the Eurostar brand replaced Thalys, operating as one network and combining ticket sales in a single system.

New trains and potential expansion

In 2025, Eurostar announced that the purchase of 50 new trains would also allow for the creation of new routes by the early 2030s, including direct services from London to Frankfurt, from London to Geneva, and from Amsterdam/Brussels to Geneva.

Routes and infrastructure

Following Eurostar's merger with Thalys in 2023, Eurostar serves the following destinations as of January 2026 :
  • departing from London St Pancras :
  • * Paris-Nord
  • * Lille-Europe ,
  • * Brussels-South ,
  • * Amsterdam-Central via Rotterdam-Central
  • departing from Paris-Nord :
  • * Bruxelles-South,
  • * Amsterdam-Central via Bruxelles-South, Antwerp-Central, Rotterdam-Central and Schiphol-Airport,
  • * Cologne via Bruxelles-Midi, Liège-Guillemins and Aachen,
  • * after Cologne: Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf Airport, Duisbourg, Essen and Dortmund
  • departing from Amsterdam-Central and Bruxelles-Midi :
  • * Marne-la-Vallée - Chessy via Charles-de-Gaulle 2 Airport - TGV,
  • * Bourg-Saint-Maurice via Chambéry - Challes-les-Eaux, Albertville, Moûtiers - Salins - Brides-les-Bains, Aime-La Plagne and Landry

    Key high-speed lines used

Connections

Same-station transfers

The main stations of the network all offer a number of same-station transfers to local trains, and to other operators, as of January 2026.
Eurostar offers a through-ticket to specific destinations by train, that is a single contract for multi leg journeys with certain passenger rights and protections. Through-tickets are available from 68 British towns and cities to destinations in France and Belgium. Standard Eurostar tickets no longer include free onward connections to or from any other station in Belgium: this is now available for a flat-rate supplement, currently £5.50.
In May 2009 Eurostar announced that a formal connection to Switzerland had been established in a partnership between Eurostar and Lyria, which will operate TGV services from Lille to the Swiss Alps for Eurostar connection.
In May 2019, Eurostar ended its agreement with Deutsche Bahn that allowed passengers to travel on a through-ticket by train from the UK via Brussels to Germany and further to Austria and Switzerland. Under the agreement, passengers could travel on a single through-ticket with passenger rights in case of disruption of one train. However, the through-tickets ceased to be sold from 9 November 2019.