EUROSTAR is expected to announce an order worth 600 million Euros for ten new trains today, which will allow the company to serve more routes.

But the French government is angered by the deal, because although state railway SNCF owns 55 per cent of Eurostar, the new trains will be built in Germany.

It's emerged that Eurostar had been planning the order for some time, choosing Siemens as its preferred bidder during the summer.

But the proposal had been kept under wraps as long as possible, partly to avoid giving an early warning to future competitors such as Deutsche Bahn, which will run its own test train into St Pancras later this month, but also because it would trigger a political storm in Paris.

High Speed trains for France have always been built by the French train supplier Alstom, and the company also constructed the trains for Eurostar, which are essentially reduced-height TGVs, in the early 1990s.

At that time, the lack of a High Speed line in Britain meant that Eurostars had to use the British domestic network to reach London, and be built to its smaller loading gauge.

The completion of the full-gauge High Speed 1 in 2007 has meant that international trains to Britain can now be almost standard ‘off the shelf’ European models, so long as they comply with Channel Tunnel safety rules. These, however, are also currently under review, with the intention of retaining only those restrictions which still seem necessary.

Eurostar's board voted to proceed with the order for ten 400m Siemens Velaro-D sets last Friday, and today's announcement is expected to be given a seal of official UK approval by the presence of the transport secretary Philip Hammond.

The French government cannot officially oppose the deal in order to help Alstom, because such a stance could breach European law.
 
However, that has not prevented considerable actitivity behind the scenes, and today's formal announcement seems set to fan the flames in Paris still further.

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