posted
It was announced on 22nd October 2025 that the lines through the Channel Tunnel would see double-decker trains by 2031. An order was placed for their construction and delivery in October 2025.
This article takes a look at the history of double-deck trains and carriages.
The featured image for this article shows what one of these trains would look like in Eurostar’s grey livery. The fully electric fleet of trains will be named Eurostar Celestia, which comes from the Latin word caelestis, meaning ‘heavenly’. The colour of the train has not yet been decided, but the current colour of Eurostar trains is grey, dark blue and yellow. Each train would be 200m long. Currently two are run together making an entire service 400m long. Double-decker trains don’t have twice as many seats as a single-deckers though, just because there needs to be room for interior steps, but there would be a fifth more seats. This means an increase from just under 900 seats on the current service to just over a thousand.
posted
Reverend, sorry that there was no inclusion of Austria within your material. Both the State-owned OBB and the private sector Westbahn offer double decked sets operating over, it seems, competing routes in Austria and into the German state of Bavaria:
On my "trips over", I've ridden both. The OBB Railjet is the "luxe" of the two, but has higher fares. However, the Westbahn is quite adequate for, say, Salzburg-Linz, but if I were going Salzburg-Wien, I'd probably opt for the greater comfort of the Railjet.
One other consideration if traveling to Wien. Westbahn does not use the more centrally located Hbf but rather Westbahnhof, which has struck me, comparatively, as "being out in the Styx".
Lest one wonder with the Rail Jet video why there are silence gaps throughout, it is because it was recorded in German and the English within was "dubbed over". Apparently it takes the German speakers more time to express the same thought.
Finally, here's another video I located with "more action and less chatter" and documenting an Innsbruck to Munich ride in the new RailJet equipment - a journey I have taken myself:
Printer-friendly view of this topic
