A fleet of high-speed trains built to connect cities in the Midlands and the North with Paris and Brussels has quietly been handed to France.

The 186mph (300km/h) trains, which cost the British taxpayer £180 million, will be used to carry French passengers between Paris and Lille. Rail groups condemned the decision, which they said exposed the contrast between France’s strong commitment to rail travel and Britain’s failure to back its statements of support with actual investment.

The opening in November of High Speed One, the fast line linking St Pancras station in London with the Channel Tunnel, would have provided an opportunity to start services from Birmingham to Paris, taking about three hours, and Manchester to Paris, taking a little over four.

A short distance north of St Pancras a branch line connects with the West Coast Main Line. This would have allowed trains from regional cities to bypass Central London en route to the Continent. British Rail built seven trains, each with 14 carriages and known as the “regional Eurostars”, to run these services.

Since rail privatisation a decade ago, the plans have been on hold and the trains have been stored in West London, apart from a short period on loan to GNER on the East Coast Main Line.

The Government claimed that there was not enough demand for direct trains from regional cities in Britain to the Continent. There are 20 flights a day from Birmingham and Manchester to Paris. If only half the passengers switched to rail, there would still be enough demand to fill two trains a day in each direction.

The Department for Transport has looked again at the possibility of running regional Eurostar services and is expected to include the idea as part of its long-term strategy for the railways being published this month. But the seven trains will be operating in France at least until the end of 2011. SNCF, the French rail operator, has also had a clause inserted in the contract allowing it to keep the trains for a further two years if it wishes.

Richard Pout, of the lobby group Railfuture, said: “It is scandalous that we are not using these trains ourselves . . . there is a sad irony in seeing trains paid for by British taxpayers going to France, where they understand the value of high-speed rail.

“With just a little more imagination they could give British people a much more environmentally friendly route to the Continent.”

A Eurostar train travelling between London and Paris emits a tenth of the carbon dioxide per passenger that an aircraft would on the same route.

A Eurostar spokesman defended the decision to lease the trains to France: “Like a car, it’s better to have these trains out running rather than sitting in a depot. I’m sure we can get them back if we want them.”

The number of passengers on Eurostar services between London and Paris or Brussels has risen by a third since 2003, from six million to eight million a year.

Eurostar refused to say how much SNCF was paying to lease the trains.

Fast (and faster)

270mph
China: Shanghai airport-to-city express

200mph
France: TGV from Paris to Strasbourg
Spain: Route from Madrid to Seville

125mph
Britain: London-to-Bristol and other intercity lines

Sources: Times database; Modern Railways

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