Last summer, Mary Walsh, the director of corporate communication for Eurostar released a glowing piece on the future of High Speed Rail in Europe.

In it, Ms Walsh focuses on the benefits that are likely to accrue to passengers as the impacts of the deregulation of the European market comes into effect.  Specifically with regards to Eurostar, she mentions that the competition on their routes, with I presume an implicit nod to the Deutsche Bahn service running through the Channel Tunnel, will help improve services for passengers.

The liberilazation of the rail market in Europe will indeed likely lead to improved services for passengers as independent firms start running trains (such as NTV in Italy), and existing firms open up new routes (such as the DB services mentioned above).  This is likely to have a marked impact on the number of services that are run on the major routes, which in turn is likely to drive down the prices to consumers, all of which are likely to benefit passengers.

All of these changes I believe will happen over the course of the coming years.  The outstanding question in my mind is around the pace of change, given the historically slow developments by these (largely) government run train operating companies.