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Deutsche Bahn to run ICE3 to Britain this year

'This autumn we will send an ICE3 test train through the tunnel beneath the English Channel as part of our preparations for possible train service to London', Deutsche Bahn Chairman & CEO Dr R^diger Grube said during his presentation of the German national rail company's half-year results on July 28.

Grube said DB is also in talks with SNCF to launch a passenger service from Frankfurt to Lyon and Marseille from 2012, and will organise a Swiss-German rail summit in the second half of this year to build on the July 9 memorandum of understanding to expand cross-border traffic in partnership with SBB.
 
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Excellent news.  Would be nice to see a little more competition and variation in routes available through the tunnel.

Indeed ... London to Frankfurt, and perhaps beyond ... London, Ashford, Calais, Brussels, Liege, Aachen, Koln, Frankfurt, Wurtzburg, Nuremburg and Munich.

Certainly in our business I'm often surprised how much work with do with Germany (and how little with France by comparison), and city centre to city centre through services leaving in the morning and at lunchtime to some of the key cities would be very attractive indeed. 

HS1 becomes "open access" November this year, there certainly is the capacity on HS1 and we all know how much of a foothold DB already have in the UK railways so this does not surprise me at all, I suspect that DB are keen to have the service up and running for the revenue to be earned in 2 years time at that little sporting even in East London but also I am sure they are interested in the long term as well

Travelling on an ICE3 from Frankfurt to Brussels a few years ago the conductor was keen to run the train through to Waterloo (now St Pancras).

So I think DB have been wanting to use the tunnel and HS1 for years.

There are some imntersting technical issues, although ICE3s are eqyuiped with TVM430 to work on French LGV and thus through the tunnel to HS1 I understand they will require 2 more operating modes. If it was still Waterloo then a third mode would have been required namely DC third rail. So HS1 through to St Pancras reders that requirement  redundant.

Firstly through the tunnel the pantograph has to be raised 6" and on HS1 the train clock has to be reset one hour earlier. These extra modes are one of the reasons why Eurostars are of the most complicated trains in the world.

Which is why a true Euro electric loco is required to work on 4 voltages and needs 20 signal receivers to be truely universal.

Hence the drive for ERTMS but judging by the difficulty of getting the Belgian and Dutch systems to talk to each other and the trains. Capacity on the LGV from Brussels to Amsterdamn is still limited and the full high speed service still awaited.   

After the shenanigans of Christmas snow, stuck eurostars in the tunnel the question has been asked is there a need to be able to split euro tunnel trains so they can be driven out in half in an emergency, this in practice is never likely to be done hence the move to allow IC3's through the tunnel they obviously meet (or will do if permitted to enter service) the tunnels fire regs.  The other techie problems ....... well if the German's can overcome those then no one will .... Vorsprung durch Technik

This is very good news.  It is a scandal that the tunnel and HS1 are so underused.  Trains to Amsterdam and Coln would open up new connections.