"R.C. Payne" wrote in message
...

2) Trains through the tunnel must meet very stringent safety requirements.
Probably the most awkward of these is the need to be able to didvide the
train to use part of the train to remove passengers so that a disabled and
dangerous half-set can be abandonned in the tunnel, and the passengers can
be evacuated. Conventional TGVs are indivisible sets, and coupled sets
have no access between the two halves. ICE3s suffer a similar problem for
different technical reasons. To solve this would either require the
safety regulations to be eased, to something closer to those in place in
other long tunnels in Europe (eg the Severn tunnel, the various alpine
tunnels &c.).

Both of these problems can only be rectified by changing the treaty
between the UK and France that allowed the tunnel to be built. While not
impossible, it would take a great deal of time and effort to make it
happen, and most discussion on these two newsgroups has come to the
conclusion that it is highly desirable from a railway perspective, it is
unlikely to happen any time soon.


Not forgetting that it suits Eurostar to have what is in effect a non tariff
barrier to competing new entrants to the cross channel route, so they aren't
likely to propose a relaxation of the standards. It will be interesting to
see eventually if that extends to buying high cost like for like
replacements for the existing trains, rather than 'off the shelf' units from
the then current range of TGV type trains.

Paul