Eurostar the high speed passenger rail transport service connecting Paris and Brussels with London. The Ticket sales for the quarter hit £178million, up 5% on the similar period last year.

This is an improvement for Eurostar which was criticised due to a chain of train breakdowns before Christmas. The breakdowns which left 2,500 passengers stranded in the channel tunnel, found the firms mass departure plans were inadequate.

The number of Passengers for January to March this year reached 2 million compared with the same period last year when it transported 1.9 million passengers, said in a report by Eurostar with a 22% increase in passengers from outside Europe.The number of business travellers remained smooth in the first quarter of 2010, the number of vacation passengers travelling between the UK and the continent increase 6% to 1.76 million.

Eurostar is planning to set up the high speed rail transport / train service as a standalone company after years of negotiations. The British government along with French and Belgian state owned rail transport companies is announced that they will relinquish ownership of rail company and instead form a new company, which will be incorporated in the UK. French rail company SNCF will have a majority stake in the newly created entity.