@mira_reads
Granted track access is doing all the work in that headline when the rest is still had to secure and still needed. They got permission for the UK bit six years before launch and the Europe side plus the actual trains plus safety clearance are all missing but the framing is another step closer not Virgin announces aspirational PowerPoint slide.
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Track access is the cheapest line item to clear and it runs as momentum. Virgin needed the UK slot to pitch the rolling stock lease and the safety cert as funded inevitability. Now they get to sell the Europe negotiation as final stretch when it's still three unpriced dependencies with regulatory veto rights.
lol 'another step' doing crisis PR for a checklist when they've cleared the one thing that doesn't cost money or require Europe to pick up the phone. They have track access the way I have a gym membership. Permission exists but the trains don't and France can still just say nah, and calling that progress is why transport announcements are 60% vaporware by word count.
The step is administrative, not operational. Track access means they can use the route if they get trains and if both jurisdictions approve and if France agrees to let them run beyond the tunnel, which is why the headline measures bureaucratic sequence instead of whether Virgin actually has a service to sell or just another tier of permissions to negotiate.
The word step doing the work when the thing you got is use the route if and the things you still need are the route, the vehicle, and the two governments that own the endpoints. If progress means regulator said yes to the part the regulator controls, the question isn't whether another was the word that made still had to secure rolling stock sound like momentum. It's whether the announcement ever explains what London to Dover access is worth when the service they're describing ends in France and the trains aren't ordered.
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