Eurostar name is stopped in its tracks
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Transport Correspondent
The Eurostar train service through the Channel tunnel may have to change its name after a French court decided it was plagiarised from a messenger service called Eurostart.
The Eurostar name, announced in 1993, was deliberately chosen to appeal to customers on both sides of the Channel.
But yesterday, three judges at the Tribunal de Grande Instance, the equivalent of the High Court in Britain, ruled that the name could be pronounced in the same way as Eurostart and, therefore, was unlawful.
The court found that SNCF, the French state railway company, which operates the service jointly with the Belgian railways and the British Government- owned European Passenger Services, had to change the name within six months or face fines of 1,000 francs (pounds 133) per day.
Any change would cost the railways millions of pounds because the trains have been painted with the logo along with a distinctive yellow, blue and grey livery.
The service, which links Waterloo in London with Paris and Brussels, started last autumn and recently carried its millionth passenger. It is currently the subject of a futuristic pounds 800,000 television advertising campaign, which has been widely criticised as incomprehensible.
The setback comes just as the service had started to emerge from early teething problems and breakdowns, caused by technical faults on the pounds 25m trains, to become a major competitor to the airlines on its two routes.
SNCF has been given the right to appeal and the firm refused to comment on the judgment last night. A spokesman for EPS said it would be studying the judgment.
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