The brand new service to the continent may make it simpler than ever to discover Germany, with direct connections deliberate to 2 main cities
Eurostar with utilise their new double decker trains on the route (artist’s impression) (Picture: ©ALSTOM SA ©SPEEDINNOV SAS 2025. Superior & Inventive Design | Avelia Horizon™. )
Plans for a brand new high-speed connection between the UK and Germany may imply future Christmas market journeys are simpler than ever.
At the moment, Brits who need to take the Eurostar to Cologne or Frankfurt have to vary at both Brussels or Paris, making the journey a number of hours lengthy and requiring them to face the inconvenience that comes with switching trains. Nevertheless, direct trains between these cities at the moment are “one step nearer” to being accessible, with a memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed this week between Eurostar and Deutsche Bahn (DB), the nationwide railway firm of Germany. This might imply high-speed connections between London and main German cities as early as 2030.
Brits may go to points of interest resembling Frankfurt’s Christmas market in simply 5 hours (Picture: Getty)
The service would utilise Eurostar’s new double-decker Celestia fleet, which has the potential for prime passenger capability alongside the road. Proposed routes embrace a direct service from London to Cologne in 4 hours, and between London and Frankfurt in 5 hours, providing a cushty and quick different to flights.
In an announcement, Keir Starmer stated: “This brings us one step nearer to a brand new rail hyperlink that can put Britain on the coronary heart of a better-connected Europe and paves the best way for elevated commerce, tourism and funding.”
A direct service would make it simpler for Brits to go to in style points of interest resembling German Christmas markets, with no need to take a flight.
Frankfurt Christmas Market is likely one of the nation’s oldest and is extraordinarily in style with vacationers. The half-timbered buildings in its city squares, Römerberg and Paulsplatz within the outdated city, are coated in Christmas lights giving it a conventional festive really feel. Along with the primary market, there are smaller themed markets that run throughout creation. This yr, there’s the Christmas Market of Frankfurt Artists and a model new Frankfurt Kids’s Christmas Market, which can embrace bushes adorned by youngsters, tents with storytellers and different leisure, and child-friendly meals.
Cologne hosts a number of Christmas markets throughout town, so a direct Eurostar hyperlink would little question make this a preferred vacation spot for Brits. Cologne Cathedral Market is the most well-liked, standing within the metropolis’s Roncalliplatz, and affords a conventional German market expertise. The Harbor Christmas Market can be in style with guests to town, because it has an enormous Ferris wheel that provides views throughout the Rhine.
Eurostar additionally has plans for direct trains to Geneva (Picture: Getty)
Earlier this yr, it was introduced that Eurostar was additionally planning to implement direct companies from London to Geneva, linking town with one among Switzerland’s main monetary hubs.
Over the summer time, the BBC reported that the brand new hyperlink may imply trains from London to Geneva take simply 5 hours. Nevertheless, there have been questions over whether or not the Eurostar depot had sufficient area at its East London depot to accommodate the bigger trains that will be required for continental journeys.
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Eurostar additionally faces competitors from different companies that need to begin providing UK to Europe practice journeys, together with Virgin, which introduced in October that it was “on observe” to launch a service utilising the Channel Tunnel. This rival service goals to attach London St Pancras Worldwide with Paris, Brussels, and Amsterdam by 2030, earlier than increasing to additional areas throughout Europe.
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