Germany is seeking to buy Britain’s share of Eurostar in a move that would leave the high-speed international train service entirely under foreign control. Passengers could benefit from direct services between London and several new continental destinations, including Cologne, Frankfurt and Amsterdam.

Deutsche Bahn (DB), Germany’s state-owned railway, may also use Eurostar trains to operate a rival service through the Channel Tunnel, with competition resulting in cheaper tickets to Paris and Brussels. But the Government, which is preparing to sell the third of Eurostar that it controls, would lose the ability to influence the development of the rail link to the Continent.

DB has plans to be the dominant rail operator in Europe and already operates high-speed services between Germany and 80 foreign cities in cooperation with state-owned railways in France, Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands, Switzerland and Austria.

Over the past 18 months, it has quietly bought several British train companies that carry a total of 30 million passengers a year. DB owns Chiltern, which runs between London Marylebone and Birmingham, and half of London Overground, which operates on the North London Line and will serve the extended East London Line from next year. It also runs two thirds of Britain’s goods trains through its purchase of EWS, the biggest British rail freight company.

DB believes that Eurostar is being run very inefficiently and is failing to take advantage of opportunities to expand its services. From 2010, train companies will have the right to run services across the European Union without needing special agreements with member states.

Passenger numbers on Eurostar have increased from 6.6 million in 2002 to nine million this year but are still far below the 20 million predicted in the mid1990s when the Channel Tunnel Rail Link was approved.

DB hopes to persuade Geoff Hoon, the Transport Secretary, that it will operate a more efficient service through the Channel Tunnel by drawing on its experience in Germany of integrating trains with other modes of transport. German rail passengers can book an entire journey on just one web-site and with one ticket and can even arrange for an electrically assisted bicycle to be waiting for them at the station.

Andreas Hamprecht, the company’s head of international business, said that it was interested in running international services through the Channel Tunnel and also expanding in any country willing to sell part of its railway. DB’s self-proclaimed objective is to “become the world’s leading passenger and logistics company”.

It is unclear how much Britain’s one-third share of Eurostar is worth but DB will make clear to Mr Hoon that the price would be much lower if he allowed France to take greater control of the company in a proposed restructuring. SNCF, the French state railway, owns 62 per cent of Eurostar, and SNCB, the Belgian state railway, owns the other 5 per cent. It is this ownership structure with duplicated management roles that is the cause of much of the company’s inefficiency.

DB would either run Eurostar in cooperation with SNCF and SNCB or run an alternative service using the 11 186mph trains owned by the Eurostar’s British arm. It already cooperates with SNCF on services between Paris and Frankfurt and Paris and Stuttgart. Fares for these services are about half the price of a similar type of ticket on Eurostar. DB offers a €39 (£35) Europa-Spezial ticket for a one-way journey across its existing international high speed network.

The Government effectively owns Eurostar UK through its controlling stake in the parent company, London & Continental Railways.

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