Great diary, your efforts save me from having to search out the information on all these projects. Something to add... not exactly a new opening, more an opening of a private network to others. On Wednesday, FT Deutschland reported a statement by Eurotunnel that ICE trains are now passed safe to transit the Channel Tunnel. That means, if formal approval has now been granted by the safety authority made up of the two governments' representatives, that the old stipulation of a passenger train having to be capable of being split in two and each half able to exit the tunnel separately is gone. It opens up the prospect of London - Cologne/Dusseldorf/Frankfurt through trains, although the problem of secure facilities to satisfy the UK Border Agency in any such station still needs solved, including platforms for through services in Brussels, unless they run them through Belgium non-stop.

The article also revisits the question of whether DB would compete with Eurostar or buy the UK share in the operator which is currently for sale. (They could even do both, as on Cologne-Brussels where they run ICEs alongside Thalys, in which they have a 10% stake, although it would be fair to say it's not full-blooded competition.)