tell me about eurostar

[Bahnhof Strasse]

But if you fly, you can sit in airport lounges and feel important, and wind up the wokerati with their "climate change" nonsense.

Could always sit in the Eurostar lounge feeling important and smug that you are causing a tad less carbon emissions to be unleashed than those flying cos they actually have shit to do to warrant a journey, whilst you and your fellow ‘rail enthusiasts’ take yet another pointless journey.

 

[T & P]

Eurostar, I believe, has never used more than about half of the capacity theoretically available to it, and they have run up to about 30 trains in each direction to date.

Genuine question (rather than trying to score any points or peruse any preconceived bias): why is that? Bad management, lack of capacity, or pricing/ lack of government subsidies?

The English Channel crossing must be one of the busiest travel routes anywhere. You would imagine there is enough passenger demand to fill as many trains between London and the Continent as the line and Tunnel can handle. Or at least, significantly more daylight services. There are always going to be plenty of people who don’t live in London or the connecting cities who choose to fly, as well those on flight connections. But surely there must still be loads of plane passengers who could and should be lured into the train?

 

[Artaxerxes]

But if you fly, you can sit in airport lounges and feel important, and wind up the wokerati with their "climate change" nonsense.

How the fuck are you flying? Going to an airport is a shit experience and the worst part of the holiday.

 

[Artaxerxes]

Genuine question (rather than trying to score any points or peruse any preconceived bias): why is that? Bad management, lack of capacity, or pricing/ lack of government subsidies?

The English Channel crossing must be one of the busiest travel routes anywhere. You would imagine there is enough passenger demand to fill as many trains between London and the Continent as the line and Tunnel can handle. Or at least, significantly more daylight services. There are always going to be plenty of people who don’t live in London or the connecting cities who choose to fly, as well those on flight connections. But surely there must still be loads of plane passengers who could and should be lured into the train?

The problem is getting to Pancras for shit o'clock and relying on the rest of the British train network to actually work.

 

[T & P]

The problem is getting to Pancras for shit o'clock and relying on the rest of the British train network to actually work.

I get that to some degree, but for those of us who live within Greater London, shit o’clock departure times are as inconvenient if you’re flying. Certainly if you’re going to cab it regardless.

As it happens we are going to Paris tomorrow on very short notice for a funeral. I really wanted to go by train even if it was a bit more expensive, but even though Eurostar delivers you to the city centre whereas you have to afford a good 45-60 minutes transfer from CDG, flying offered us the earliest available option for less money. And we’re coming back late afternoon because we couldn’t find a dog sitter for the night, and again we had more early evening arrival options, and pretty much half the cost of the train.

For fairness sake, many budget airlines now charge for even standard sized hand luggage, and since we’re not even overnighting we don’t need any, but at the same time, even the added cost of hand luggage would still ring the airfare’s cost lower.

Admittedly it might the case that if we’d been able to book three weeks in advance we’d have found cheaper train tickets. But then air fares are not exactly known to be cheap if you book three days before travel.

 

[Artaxerxes]

I get that to some degree, but for those of us who live within Greater London, shit o’clock departure times are as inconvenient if you’re flying. Certainly if you’re going to cab it regardless.

As it happens we are going to Paris tomorrow on very short notice for a funeral. I really wanted to go by train even if it was a bit more expensive, but even though Eurostar delivers you to the city centre whereas you have to afford a good 45-60 minutes transfer from CDG, flying offered us the earliest available option for less money. And we’re coming back late afternoon because we couldn’t find a dog sitter for the night, and again we had more early evening arrival options, and pretty much half the cost of the train.

For fairness sake, many budget airlines now charge for even standard sized hand luggage, and since we’re not even overnighting we don’t need any, but at the same time, even the added cost of hand luggage would still ring the airfare’s cost lower.

Admittedly it might the case that if we’d been able to book three weeks in advance we’d have found cheaper train tickets. But then air fares are not exactly known to be cheap if you book three days before travel.

Oh ES could definitely stand to be cheaper


I still want to take that train to Avignon

 

[teuchter]

Genuine question (rather than trying to score any points or peruse any preconceived bias): why is that? Bad management, lack of capacity, or pricing/ lack of government subsidies?

The English Channel crossing must be one of the busiest travel routes anywhere. You would imagine there is enough passenger demand to fill as many trains between London and the Continent as the line and Tunnel can handle. Or at least, significantly more daylight services. There are always going to be plenty of people who don’t live in London or the connecting cities who choose to fly, as well those on flight connections. But surely there must still be loads of plane passengers who could and should be lured into the train?

That's a good question and I guess you'd get different answers from different people. There are some things about the tunnel/Eurostar that are kind of particular to it but I think it's much the same story as for railways anywhere - they hardly ever turn a "profit" and tend to need what looks to most people like a "subsidy" in order to compete with air. Of course, if you ask someone like me I'd say we "subsidise" air travel way too much, but the ways in which it's subsidised are well disguised.

For stuff specific to Eurostar, things that put a constraint on it include political decisions about border control (for example if the UK govt would accept inbound passport control at St Pancras, then there'd be much less obstacle to direct services to various European destinations). Or of course, if the UK were part of Schengen. Then there are historical (basically political) decisions like deciding not to run the "north of London" services, or the overnight services, that were initially envisaged.

We're watching HS2 get hobbled by political decisions too now of course.

And in some parallel universe, HS1 and HS2 would have been connected and you could run a high speed train direct from Birmingham to Brussels.

There's a whole other side of the story about the Channel Tunnel and rail freight, which at the moment barely uses any of the capacity available to it. Meanwhile thousands of lorries plough through Kent and the rest of the UK. This could be changed by a different transport policy approach too. But the UK govt is never intetested enough. Certainly not the current one.

 

[teuchter]

Arguably it's not that healthy that Eurostar has no direct competitors - it has the monopoly on rail travel between the UK and the continent. Of course, it competes with the airlines but still has a bit of a captive market to some extent. On the other hand there are lots of airlines in competition with one another. There are certain things that Eurostar does that are annoying and I think it might not do them if they had direct competition. Also, I wonder if it gives them an incentive to constrain capacity a bit to keep prices high.

There is, perhaps, some realistic prospect of other operators appearing in the next 5-10 years. For the first time HS1 looks like it might actually be proactively encouraging it.

I'm not necessarily a fan of railways being run on that model (the competing operators one) - I'd prefer something more state-regulated in many cases - but Eurostar neither has fares regulated nor does it have direct competition. And it can do stuff like stop serving Ashford or Ebbsfleet because it decides it's not commercially worth it. And yet those stations were built using public funds, to provide a public service.

 

[Bus Honeygun]

Engineering works on the Belgian high-speed line for three weeks in August (12-30th) with diversions via the 'classic' route through Tournai for UK services. Guess that will add around 30 minutes to journey times.

Couldn't find an English language article, so here's one in Dutch. Mentions work going on for 10 years, which will include a two-week closure once per year until 2035.

Infrabel vernieuwt hogesnelheidslijn naar Frankrijk, hogesnelheidstreinen omgeleid in augustus

www.vrt.be

 

[hash tag]

As I emerge from the tunnel I'm am told it is 30 years today since the first passengers travelled from London to Paris on Eurostar.

 

[Bus Honeygun]

1997 was my first trip in the days when Eurostar still staggered through South London and Kent from Waterloo. Ludicrously exciting at the time and I can remember the 'take off' coming out of the tunnel at Calais Fréthun and standing in the cafe/bar drinking Duvel and marvelling at the speed as we hurtled towards Paris.

Part of my four or five times a year routine for ages now, and I've had some horror shows of journeys to take the gloss off, but it still gives me a bit of a buzz.

 

[Spymaster]

1997 was my first trip in the days when Eurostar still staggered through South London and Kent from Waterloo. Ludicrously exciting at the time and I can remember the 'take off' coming out of the tunnel at Calais Fréthun and standing in the cafe/bar drinking Duvel and marvelling at the speed as we hurtled towards Paris.

Part of my four or five times a year routine for ages now, and I've had some horror shows of journeys to take the gloss off, but it still gives me a bit of a buzz.

We had tickets for quite soon after it opened, early 1995 I think. I was very much looking forward to it but it went out of service and we ended up flying. I don't think I travelled on it until quite a few years later.

 

[Bus Honeygun]

We had tickets for quite soon after it opened, early 1995 I think. I was very much looking forward to it but it went out of service and we ended up flying. I don't think I travelled on it until quite a few years later.

The other great thing (for the passenger but probably not Eurostar) in the early days was that the trains were sometimes fairly quiet. Unimaginable now. We did an Exeter to Amsterdam trip in 1999, getting the sleeper to Paddington and the first Eurostar from Waterloo to Brussels, and had the carriage almost to ourselves the whole way.

 

[teuchter]

Direct Amsterdam-London services resume in February, earlier than previously thought.

https://www.businesstravelnewseurope.com/Ground-Transport/Eurostar-to-resume-direct-Amsterdam-London-trains-in-early-2025

 

[hash tag]

The other great thing (for the passenger but probably not Eurostar) in the early days was that the trains were sometimes fairly quiet. Unimaginable now. We did an Exeter to Amsterdam trip in 1999, getting the sleeper to Paddington and the first Eurostar from Waterloo to Brussels, and having the carriage almost to ourselves the whole way.

One of our early trips on Eurostar we stayed in the bar the entire journey because of the noise in the carriage. The trip to Paris was good but we did one of the first summer trips to Avignon. That was amazing. We got on at Waterloo when it was damp and gloomy and just walked off the train at the other end, no checks, into brilliant sunshine.

BBC News - Eurostar: Baked bean man rides first cross-channel train - BBC News

Eurostar: Baked bean man rides first cross-channel train

We spoke to passengers taking part in the first Eurostar journey from Waterloo on 14 November 1994.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[hash tag]

This is poor reading

Eurostar the worst-performing rail service in Europe, campaigners find

Firm disputes Transport and Environment’s findings, which also ranked Deutsche Bahn as one of the least reliable

www.theguardian.com

 

[metalguru]

From that article:

It (Eurostar) said it did not provide automated refunds for delays because it wanted to let customers choose the type of compensation they received.

lol - I gave up trying to get compensation from them as the process was dragged out for so long. I’m sure this is a common experience.

 

[Bus Honeygun]

This is poor reading

Eurostar the worst-performing rail service in Europe, campaigners find

Firm disputes Transport and Environment’s findings, which also ranked Deutsche Bahn as one of the least reliable

www.theguardian.com

That's interesting. I guess the stats for Eurostar will be skewed by the former Thalys services. One of the reasons for merging with Eurostar was to get rid of the Thalys brand and its associations. I avoid the trains that used to be Thalys as much as possible, but last time I did one from Paris to Brussels a couple of years ago it really did feel like a lot of money for a pretty shabby unit that obviously handn't seen much attention in the last 25 years.

Surprised to see Trenitalia scoring so high, especially beating SBB, although Italian fares are pretty good value, so that might have something to do with it.

 

[Plumdaff]

Trenitalia has a lot of lovely new trains comparable to Swiss ones and the pricing is really good.

 

[skyscraper101]

I've never really liked Eurostar. They're like 3X the cost of flying and the checking-in/security experience is always as much of a ball ache as going to the airport. The convenience of being in the centre of town is still not worth the premium for me.

 

[Sue]

I've never really liked Eurostar. They're like 3X the cost of flying and the checking-in/security experience is always as much of a ball ache as going to the airport. The convenience of being in the centre of town is still not worth the premium for me.

Strongly disagree. The check in/security is way, way better (if it was admittedly better in the past) and so much less stressful all round than flying. I've also certainly never experienced that kind of price differential. And so, so much better to departure/arrive centrally.

 

[Bahnhof Strasse]

Eurostar refunds have always been quick and easy for the cross channel services. Thalys has always been a nightmare, guess that situation has carried over through the rebrand.

St Pancras these days is a disaster, if you're not there an hour before departure you'll miss your train if it is even a remotely busy day, so much so that nearly all the tickets I issue are in business premier as that has a separate check in lane, but they are now nearly £600 return, which is A LOT.

 

[metalguru]

Experiences can vary considerably (for example, I’ve experienced severe over-crowding at St Pancras) - see Tripadvisor etc.

I’ve found them a bit like Virgin Media: it’s generally ok until something goes wrong and you’re obliged to contact their notorious customer services.

 

[Gromit]

I've never really liked Eurostar. They're like 3X the cost of flying and the checking-in/security experience is always as much of a ball ache as going to the airport. The convenience of being in the centre of town is still not worth the premium for me.

Town centre to Town centre.

That's a saving in travel time and costs at both ends.

Mind you I get a significant discount so for me it's house to hotel for less than the price of a black cab to the airport.

 

[skyscraper101]

My experience of Eurostar has always been very average with litle benefit for the extra cost. Airport security, having to show up super early, and then being penned into a crowded holding area for ages with dozens upon dozens of others all waiting for their train to be called with little available seating or conveniences post-security. From London, that's often three trainloads of people heading to Paris/Amsterdam/Brussles all within an hour of each other, all penned in the same area, bags an all, having to wait to be let onto the platform getting more and more irratable. The upside of getting to a city centre only has a finite value to me.

Sometimes, rarely, it's worth it. But more often than not, it's not worth the huge premium.

 

[skyscraper101]

Strongly disagree. The check in/security is way, way better (if it was admittedly better in the past) and so much less stressful all round than flying. I've also certainly never experienced that kind of price differential. And so, so much better to departure/arrive centrally.

How is it better though? It's basically the same except for the passport bit being done on departure rater than on arrival.

 

[Sue]

How is it better though? It's basically the same except for the passport bit being done on departure rater than on arrival.

IMO it's just way faster and less stressful.

 

[oryx]

IMO it's just way faster and less stressful.

Yes we I massively prefer it to flying, and it's better for the environment.

People who live in London with easy access to St Pancras are at a big advantage, though.

Contemplating Bruges in June.

 

[Bahnhof Strasse]

People who live in London with easy access to St Pancras are at a big advantage, though.

And if you don't it's pretty crap, especially as they've stopped serving Ebbsfleet. Waterloo is my London terminus, if you have kids/baggage etc. it's a bastard to get to St Pancras from there unless your train stops at Vauxhall (which mine don't), so it's a black cab/uber across town.

Contemplating Bruges in June.

They still do an 'any-Belgian-station' ticket, (used to be all tickets to Brussels included this, (gouging fucks pulled the plug on that decent perk), might be worth looking at that rather buying a separate ticket to Bruges. If you have standard premier (now called Eurostar Plus) and an any station ticket you can sit in first class on Belgian rail.

 

[hash tag]

St Pancras these days is a disaster, if you're not there an hour before departure you'll miss your train if it is even a remotely busy day,

When returning from Paris recently, the queues were huge. Security and check in quick and easy other than that. I'm sure people got rushed through for a train which they turned up for about 15 minutes from departure time.