London St Pancras Highspeed could soon offer direct trains to popular European cities including Cologne, Geneva and Zurich

St Pancras railway station in London and the Channel tunnel operator have agreed to work together to open up more trains from Britain to France, and routes to Germany and Switzerland. It comes as St Pancras station is looking at ways to nearly triple the number of passengers passing through at peak times from 1,800 to 5,000, in an effort to open up more services to France and routes to Germany and Switzerland.

London St Pancras Highspeed (LSPH) – the company formerly known as HS1 that runs St Pancras – and Getlink, the Paris-based Channel tunnel operator, said they would work together to shorten journey times, improve timetable coordination, align on growth strategies and introduce more trains each hour for international services in each direction.

Getlink said new direct high-speed train routes could serve Germany, Switzerland and France. Those could include Cologne, Frankfurt, Geneva and Zurich. Getlink has previously said it wanted new services to be up and running by 2029.

It will rival the Eurostar network that runs from London to Paris, Brussels, and Amsterdam, as well as to Bourg-Saint-Maurice in the French Alps during the ski season. Train companies believe there could be increased interest in European destinations from travellers keen to avoid the large carbon emissions produced by air travel.

Robert Sinclair, the chief executive of LSPH, said he wanted “a future where high-speed rail is the preferred option for travelling to Europe”. His company and Getlink would “actively work together to encourage new and existing train operators to expand capacity and launch new destinations unlocking the potential of a fully connected Europe”, he said.

HS2 is still being built, but the original plan to connect London to the north was scrapped by Rishi Sunak in October 2023, and the Labour government has said it will not resurrect it. The remaining stretch of the line, which will now connect London to the West Midlands, is estimated to cost between £45bn and £54bn.