First Brexit, then Covid: can Eurostar get back on track?

First Brexit, then Covid: can Eurostar get back on track?

In an office near St Pancras ­station, Jacques Damas is holding a train magazine and preparing for a train journey. The 63-year-old chief executive of Eurostar has worked in railways for his entire career.

But if you suggest that he might be passionate about trains, he seems almost affronted. "I do not have a private [toy train] network in my house! I'm not in this category. For me, you must not have a personal passion, which becomes an obstacle to reality.“

When Eurostar recruits staff, it is wary of applicants who are train enthusiasts. "A good railwayman is someone who evolves,“ says Damas, an angular, grey-haired and sometimes theatrical Frenchman. "Those who are absolutely passionate about the last century “” no, we are no longer in steam trains.“

This tension between passion and practicality “” dream and reality “” lies at the heart of Eurostar. It is summed up by the 20-metre-long Tracey Emin neon artwork that hangs at St Pancras, its London terminus: the message, "I Want My Time with You“, is both romantic and demanding.

When Eurostar opened in 1994, the French newspaper Le Figaro declared "the end of British insularity“. For couples who got engaged by the Eiffel Tower, MEPs who