UK and Switzerland open way for direct rail link

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The UK and Swiss governments have outlined plans to encourage train companies to launch direct services between London and Switzerland, in an attempt to tap into booming demand for long-distance rail travel in Europe.

The two governments on Friday announced a memorandum of understanding to “lay the groundwork for future commercial services”, linking the two countries through the Channel Tunnel rail link.

A direct service would aim to appeal to both business and leisure travellers and would cut the journey time from London to Geneva to about five hours, according to people in the industry. At the moment, the same journey takes about 7.5 hours by train with a transfer in Paris. A flight to Geneva from London takes about one hour and 40 minutes.

A direct rail service would present logistical challenges because of the need to build border infrastructure at Swiss stations and for any new operator to buy trains compatible with the Channel Tunnel’s stringent safety rules. The governments said they would explore ways to overcome such barriers.

One option being explored is to build temporary “modular” border controls and security screening in the Swiss stations as this would keep costs down, one person involved said.

Demand for long-distance intercity rail travel in Europe has boomed since the coronavirus pandemic, in part because of passengers’ environmental concerns around flying, according to industry executives.

“We welcome steps to strengthen sustainable travel between the UK and Switzerland . . . This is a first step in a wider plan with our partners to grow connections in the greenest way,” Gwendoline Cazenave, chief executive of Eurostar, said.

Still, several executives cautioned that the barriers to entry on cross-Channel routes remained high, and that any new services between London and Switzerland would be years away.

Albert Rösti, one of seven federal councillors in the executive arm of the Swiss government, said a London to Switzerland service would be an “ambitious goal” but that it was “really likely” services would launch within five to 10 years.

The Swiss government said that stations in Geneva, Zurich, and Basel could take trains from London but that these would need to be fitted with border control facilities. Switzerland’s federal transport department would present a plan to the central government next year on how this could work, it added.

Eurostar is the only company that runs international trains from London to stations in France, Belgium and Holland.

Swiss Federal Railways (SBB), the national rail company of Switzerland, said it welcomed the plan. It said the requirements for a direct connection, which would be in the 2030s at the earliest, would include investment in new high-speed trains.

Several other operators, including the Italian state railway and Richard Branson’s Virgin Group, have applied for permission to launch their own services from London to the continent, in the most significant challenges yet to Eurostar’s 30-year monopoly.

The owner of the high-speed rail line from London to the channel tunnel, London St Pancras Highspeed, earlier this year unveiled financial incentives to encourage operators to launch more services between London and mainland Europe.

Its chief executive Robert Sinclair said the agreement between the UK and Switzerland “brings us one step closer to direct high-speed services between London and Switzerland”.