Eurostar carried more than 8m passengers in a year for the first time in 2007, as the cross-Channel high-speed train operator further increased its share of the market for travel between London and Paris and Brussels.

Eurostar – a joint operation between a British company and the French and Belgian national railways – carried 8.26m travellers during the year, a 5.1 per cent increase on the 7.85m in 2006, it announced on Wednesday.