Spain’s national rail operator Renfe wants to compete with Eurostar on the high-speed rail route between Paris and London, ramping up a rivalry with Eurostar’s majority owner, the French rail operator SNCF.
The Channel Tunnel itself is operated by a separate company, Eurotunnel, and is theoretically open to any qualified operator. Several years ago German operator DeutscheBahn planned through service between Germany and London, but dropped the plan because it would have required new rolling stock. Renfe says its rolling stock is up to Eurotunnel standards.
There’s an element of national pride and competition mixed in here; SNCF’s budget TGV division Ouigo has been running a cheap rail service between Madrid and Barcelona with connections into France, but Renfe’s attempts to operate service in France, starting with a line from Marseille to Lyon, have met with what it calls “numerous obstacles.” Renfe believes that grabbing a share of the tunnel business will move it closer to operating more routes in France.
SIDENOTE: If you’re curious about Eurotunnel, it’s renamed itself GetLink. While originally it was a publicly-controlled company set up to build the tunnel and to operate truck-and-car shuttles through it, it has long since been privatized. Currently, the largest shareholder, with about 15% of the shares and 26% of the votes is Atlantia, an Italian infrastructure company controlled by the Benetton family, and held responsible for the disastrous highway bridge collapse in Genoa in 2018.
