Rival trainmakers Alstom and Siemens are set to square off in the race to win a £2bn order from Eurostar, in a rerun of a battle that ended in legal action more than a decade ago. Eurostar has announced plans to issue a tender for 50 new trains to tap increasing demand for cross Channel services and to help it launch new routes within a network that already links London, Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam and Cologne, and provides services to the French Riviera and Alpine ski resorts. The contract for more than 700 rail cars will be one of the biggest this decade for high speed trains and is expected to draw interest from other manufacturers including CAF of Spain and Japan’s Hitachi, which has its main European train plant at Newton Aycliffe, County Durham. At the heart of the contest will be a renewed confrontation between Paris-based Alstom and Germany’s Siemens. Alstom provided Eurostar’s original fleet, based on France’s intercity high-speed rail service TGV, when journeys through the Channel Tunnel began 30 years ago. However, the French company found itself gazumped in the bidding for a follow-on contract in 2010, losing out to the Siemens Velaro model. The decision by...