Consortium denies rumours that project is shelved
Eurostar has quashed industry speculation that the Railteam initiative for seamless high-speed rail travel across Western Europe has been shelved.
Railteam, an alliance between seven European train operators including SNCF, Deutsche Bahn and Eurostar, was unveiled in July 2007 with a set up cost of €30m.
The initiative also includes the development of a common booking platform originally scheduled to be unveiled early this year.
Eurostar communications director Simon Montague denied the alliance had been scrapped but admitted there had been some development issues with the common platform.
"We're now going for a web-based system. We always knew it was going to be a big challenge and we can go for a quicker result going down the web-based route.
"The long-term ambition is still for a common distribution system," he said.
Mr Montague was reacting to industry rumours that the entire project had been shelved indefinitely.
He told ABTN that the alliance was currently working on improving information for passengers and highlighting all of the options.
www.railteam.com