[6] DB Cargo UK run freight services on High Speed 1 using adapted Class 92 locomotives, enabling flat wagons carrying continental-size swap body containers to reach London for the first time.

A committee was set up to examine the proposal under Sir Alexander Cairncross; but in due course environment minister Anthony Crosland announced that the project had been cancelled,[20] together with the plan for the tunnel itself.

[21] The idea of using the North London line proved illusory, and it was rejected in 1994 by the then Transport Secretary, John MacGregor, as too difficult to construct and environmentally damaging.

[22] The idea of using St Pancras station as the core of the new terminus was retained, albeit now linked by 20 kilometres (12 miles) of specially built tunnels to Dagenham via Stratford.

In return, Railtrack was committed to operate the whole route as well as London St Pancras International, which, unlike all other former British Rail stations, had been transferred to LCR/Union Railways in 1996.

As a consequence of the restructuring, the LCR consortium in 2001 consisted of engineering consultants and construction firms Arup, Bechtel, Halcrow and Systra (which form Rail Link Engineering (RLE)); transport operators National Express and SNCF (which operates the Eurostar (UK) share of the Eurostar service with the National Railway Company of Belgium and British Airways), the electricity company EDF and UBS.

[37] Three companies were found guilty of breaching health and safety legislation by omitting to provide barriers, resulting in Deverson Direct Ltd. being ordered to pay a fine of £50,000, J.Murphy & Sons Ltd. £25,000, and Hochtief AG £25,000.

[37] Two more deaths resulted from a fire on board a train carrying wires, one mile (1.6 km) inside a tunnel under the Thames between Swanscombe, Kent, and Thurrock, Essex on 16 August 2005.

In February 2006, there were rumours that a 'third party' (believed to be a consortium headed by banker Sir Adrian Montague) had expressed an interest in buying out the present partners in the project.

[42] By May 2009, LCR had become insolvent, and the government received an agreement to use state aid to purchase the line and to open it up to competition to allow other services to use it apart from Eurostar.

[47] Under the concession, HS1 Ltd has the rights to sell access to track and to the four international stations (St Pancras, Stratford, Ebbsfleet and Ashford) on a commercial basis, under the scrutiny of the Office of Rail & Road.

[1] The French LGV Est, a line built largely through near-flat fields (save for the Saverne Tunnel) and which terminates outside its urban centres (Vaires-sur-Marne for Paris and Vendenheim for Strasbourg) cost £22 million per mile.

[55] High Speed 1 approaches Ashford International from the north in a cut-and-cover "box"; the southbound line rises out of this cutting and crosses over the main tracks to enter the station.

The two tunnels (much of which is directly under the North London Line) are 10.1-kilometre (6.3-mile) and the 7.5-kilometre (4.7-mile) in length, split by a 1-kilometre (0.62-mile) stretch that runs close to the surface to serve Stratford International and the Temple Mills Depot.

[62][63] Ebbsfleet International railway station in the borough of Dartford, Kent is 10 mi (16 km) outside the eastern boundary of Greater London and opened to the public on 19 November 2007.

During the 2000s, towards the end of the construction of the CTRL, the entire station complex was renovated, expanded and renamed as St Pancras International,[69][70] with a new security-sealed terminal area for Eurostar trains to continental Europe.

[79] The CTRL Section 2 construction works had caused considerable disruption around the Kings Cross area of London; in their wake redevelopment was stimulated.

[93] Waterloo International closed upon opening of the section two of the CTRL in November 2007; Eurostar now serves the refurbished St Pancras as its only London terminal, so this connecting line is no longer used in regular service,[94][95] but can be used by Class 395 passenger trains.

[110] Network Rail (High Speed) operates engineering, track maintenance machines, rescue locomotives, and infrastructure- and test trains.

On the night of 4/5 May 2011 the SNCF TGV Iris 320 laboratory train took over, being hauled from Coquelles to St Pancras and back, towed by Eurotunnel Krupp locomotives numbers 4 and 5.

[113] The Iris 320 runs for Network Rail (High Speed) are an extension of the 100 km/h (62 mph) monitoring cycle already undertaken by SNCF International since December 2010 for Eurotunnel every two months.

[131] On 16 April 2009 DB Schenker signed an agreement with HS1 Ltd, the owner of High Speed 1, for a partnership to develop TVM modifications for class 92 freight locomotives to run on the line.

[144] Under the deregulation of European railway service, high-speed lines were opened up to access by other operators on 1 January 2010; the Inter-Governmental Commission on the Channel Tunnel (IGC) announced that it was considering relaxing the safety requirements concerning train splitting.

This had originally planned to be 2013, but has been delayed due to the availability of the Channel Tunnel version of the Siemens Velaro D trains, high rental costs of the French rail network and border controls in their stations.

[151] As of 2016, nothing yet has come to fruition, but the High Speed One website continues to state that "HS1 Ltd are working with Deutsche Bahn on plans to incorporate three additional international return journeys, between Frankfurt and London via Cologne, Brussels and Lille.

[154] In January 2024, DB remarked "transport between London and the mainland through the Eurotunnel remains of fundamental interest to Deutsche Bahn", though noting that the routes and trains were not yet equipped with end-to-end ETCS.

[155] In 2009, Veolia Transport (now defunct and merged into Transdev) planned to work on proposals in co-operation with Trenitalia to run services from Paris to Strasbourg, London and Brussels.

[161] In August 2018, Bloomberg Businessweek reported that Getlink is interested in setting up an Ouigo-style low cost high speed rail service between London and Paris, travelling between the railway stations of Stratford International and Charles-de-Gaulle.

[166] Evolyn, led by the Cosmen family of Spain (the largest shareholder in Mobico) and backed by British and French partners, planned to start non-stop services between London and Paris by 2025.

[170][171] Virgin and Evolyn remarked in November 2024 at an industry event in the Houses of Parliament, that Eurostar had not agreed access to Temple Mills depot.