In message
, at
08:29:30 on Wed, 25 Mar 2009, Mizter T remarked:

On 25 Mar, 14:24, Roland Perry wrote:

In message
, at
18:08:44 on Tue, 24 Mar 2009, remarked:

T5 has a pair of spare platforms, and it's the home of BA, who own
about 10% of Eurostar, so that's the obvious place to use.

BA own 10% of Eurostar UK. I don't know what proportion of the Eurostar
trains are operated by Eurostar UK (rather than the equivalent Belgian
and French companies), but all the ones I get to/from Brussels seem to
have French speaking crew.

BA emphatically does *not* own 10% of Eurostar UL Ltd (EUKL).

OK.

BA is however a 10% shareholder in Inter-Continental and Regional Rail
- LCR has a contract with ICRR to manage the UK part of the Eurostar
operation, i.e. the British share of the tri-national effort.

Any idea how big the British share is - 33.3% exactly, or some other
figure?

BA is however a silent partner in this.

And if the contact is almost expired, there isn't much residual value
anyway.

Things get even more interesting when one considers that the contract
LCR has with ICRR expires next year - it could be renewed,

Presumably the contract has to be renewed, but not necessarily with
ICRR. LVCR might pick a different partner, a bit like DaFT chooses a
different partner to operate the UK rail franchises from time to time.

but it seems there could *possibly* be some interesting scenarios with
an outside party - say DB - coming in and buying EUKL and then
proceeding to operate a new, separate international service which might
then precipitate the collapse of the tri-national Eurostar collaboration.

Couldn't DB run the equivalent of an open-access operation, alongside a
renewed "franchise" for the UK Eurostar operations?
--
Roland Perry