"Massive untapped potential": New Channel Tunnel open access hopefuls detail plans

A new open access operator is hopeful that its offering can encourage a “whole new generation of cross-Channel travellers”.

Gemini Trains Chief Executive Adrian Quine has told RAIL about his company’s ambitions, after submitting a formal request to the Office of Rail and Road (ORR) to access Eurostar’s Temple Mills International Depot (TMI).

The operator intends to run trains between London St Pancras and Paris Gare du Nord and Brussels Midi initially, before a possible expansion.

“We believe there’s massive untapped potential,” said Quine.

“Look at what has happened where open access disruptors have come in - generally speaking there’s more (revenue) for everybody,” he added, pointing at similar scenarios in Spain and Italy, as well as on the East Coast Main Line.

Quine cited a shift towards international rail travel, with people wanting to go directly from one city centre to another, using greener modes of transport.

“The growing of the market will be more than any abstraction from Eurostar. We need to encourage more people to use the train,” he added.

Gemini hopes to be able to improve ticketing for customers, saying that rail “can be behind other industries” when it comes to user experience.

Explaining the firm’s vision, Quine said Gemini was talking to other operators about through ticketing and becoming “a link between the UK and the continent”. He would also like to see the option for hotels to be included in tickets.

“There’s so much potential to be dynamic, to offer passengers something that’s not very easy to arrange. That’s where we can be really dynamic and will see modal shift.”

Gemini hopes to begin operating trains in late 2028 or the first half of 2029, starting with four to six trains a day to Paris and a similar number to Brussels.

That timeframe also allows for the first stage of London St Pancras High Speed’s (formerly HS1 Ltd) plan to improve passenger capacity and flow at St Pancras to have got under way.

Calling at Ebbsfleet International forms part of the business plan but using Ashford International isn’t. While it hasn‘t been ruled out entirely, Quine admitted Gemini would “need convincing”, with the primary focus on the “lowest-hanging fruit”.

Gemini has spoken to four manufacturers which could provide the ten trains it needs (Alstom, Hitachi, Siemens and Talgo), although no deal has been signed yet.

Any rolling stock order is likely to cost around £400 million, with full startup costs set to be in the “mid-high hundreds of millions”.

Gemini’s Section 17 depot access application includes requests for one dedicated track in a workshop shed, three 200-metre-long sidings for overnight stabling, and one siding for daytime stabling.

Although it hasn’t discussed a specific contract length with Eurostar, the operator said it envisaged seeking a ten-year access contract.

The team behind the scheme includes Lord Berkeley (Chair), GNER’s former Chief Financial Officer Tom Fielden (CFO), and Ian Chaplin (Commercial Director), who has previously been Eurostar’s Head of Distribution and Business Development Director at Trainline.

Quine told RAIL that he and Lord Berkeley discussed the idea at the InnoTrans show in Berlin in 2022, before the company was formed in April 2023.

Lord Berkeley explained why he decided to get involved with the project: “I have been concerned about the monopoly of Eurostar since it started. I had to find a team of people I thought could have some chance of breaking the monopoly. Price is the main concern, and where they go to.”

He said Gemini had enjoyed a good relationship with French national operator SNCF so far, adding: “We’ve a long way to go, but we have such a great team of people I think we can pull this off.”

Despite being two years old, Gemini’s announcement on March 24 was its first public statement.

Gemini needed to submit its Section 17 depot access application before the outcome of an independent review into TMI’s capacity was published.

The operator joins Evolyn and Virgin in wanting space at Eurostar’s London depot, although the latter has insisted there isn’t room for a second operator.