Regional Eurostar was a planned Eurostar train service from Paris and Brussels to locations in the United Kingdom beyond London. The services would have been run using a fleet of seven North of London, 14-coach British Rail Class 373/3 trainsets. Beginnings When the Channel Tunnel was first announced in the 1980s, it was part of the proposals to operate high-speed rail services through it on both sides of the English Channel with a substantial network envisaged. This was gradually reduced to a core service, along dedicated TGV-style high-speed lines, between the three capital cities, regional daytime services to Glasgow Central via the East Coast Main Line and Manchester Piccadilly via the West Coast Main Line, and Nightstar sleeper services to the same cities as well as Plymouth and Cardiff via the Great Western Main Line. A depot for the regional Eurostar services, Manchester International Depot, was constructed at Longsight in Manchester by London and Continental Railways. A large Eurostar-branded sign was attached to the outside of the depot with the slogan "le Eurostar habite ici" (French for "the Eurostar lives here"), although the depot was empty and unused; the sign remained in place for several years after the Regional Eurostar project was abandoned. Trial runs were undertaken using the 373/2 sets on both the East and West Coast Main Lines and passenger information signs and Eurostar lounges were installed at stations along the route. As the high-speed rail line between London and the Channel Tunnel, High Speed 1, was not under construction Eurostar services within the UK were forced to use existing rail lines and connecting junctions were built to allow Regional Eurostars access via the congested West and North London Lines. In all British Rail invested £140 million in infrastructure to allow the services to operate. Privatisation Regional Eurostar services were never to run. At the same time as the Channel Tunnel was nearing completion, British Rail was undergoing the long process of privatisation and regional Eurostar can be seen as a victim of it. Many had seen regional services as more a political than economic cause, a means of gaining support for the Channel Tunnel from areas of the UK outside the South-East. A parliamentary select committee in 1999 said "The regions have been cheated". The economic case for merely the inter-capital services had been questioned from the outset but by the time the Channel Tunnel was opened