Eurostar Shoots to London in Record Time
The Eurostar train service between Paris and London almost broke two
hours today. The new high-speed line might help it better compete with
low-cost airlines. The Eurostar train that connects Britain and continental
Europe through the Channel Tunnel broke a speed record Tuesday on its
Paris to London route.
Filled with journalists and public officials for the record-breaking
attempt, the train completed its journey between Paris's Gare du Nord
terminal and the new St. Pancras train station in central London in 2
hours, 3 minutes and 39 seconds.
Normal time for the journey between the French station and London's
Waterloo International station is 2 hours 35 minutes. The service will
switch to the new St. Pancras station when it begins public operations
on Nov. 14.
The train left France at 10:44 a.m. Paris time and treated its
passengers to free coffee and champagne until it arrived at 11:47 a.m.
London time in a station which was empty except for a loud orchestra
playing a welcome.
The train is now running faster due to improvements made on the British
side of the line's service. Up until now, the train was limited to lower
speeds as it shared lines with slower moving local trains. A new 68 mile
(109 km) track known as High Speed 1 was specifically built for the
Eurostar at a cost of 5.8 billion pounds ($11.7 billion, €8.6 billion)
on the stretch between the coastal city of Folkestone and its
destination in London.
Eurostar is a train service connecting the UK with Paris (Gare du Nord),
Lille and Brussels (Brussels South). Trains cross the English Channel
via the Channel Tunnel. In Southern England, a new railway line has been
built to the same high-speed LGV standards used in France. The two-phase
Channel Tunnel Rail Link (CTRL) project has been partially in operation
since 2003, reducing times to and from London Waterloo. Eurostar have
announced that upon completion of the CTRL into London St Pancras, the
finished railway will be branded as High Speed 1 to the public from
November 14, 2007 onwards.
Since the first revenue-earning Eurostar trains ran in November 1994,
Eurostar has established a dominant share of the market on the routes it
serves. In November 2004, ten years after the start of services,
Eurostar stated that their share of the combined rail/air market share
had grown to 68% for London-Paris and 63% for London-Brussels. As an
ecological pointer, the company noted that these passenger figures
represented a saving of 393,000 carbon dioxide-producing short-haul
flights.
From 2003, the journey time from London to Paris has been 2 hours 35
minutes with London to Brussels slightly faster at 2 hours 20 minutes.
In November 2007, times from London to the Channel Tunnel will be cut by
20 minutes, when the construction of the full CTRL is complete. CTRL
Section 2 (CTRL2) will bring the British portion of the route up to the
same standards as the French and Belgian LGV high-speed sections,
allowing 300 km/h running.
On 4th September 2007, a special record-breaking train left Paris Gare
du Nord at 10.44 (9.44 BST) and reached London St Pancras in 2 hours 3
mins 39 seconds. French driver Francis Queret took the train through
France, while a Briton, Neil Meare, took control of train-set 3223/24
passing through Kent. Transporting journalists and railway workers, the
train was the first passenger-carrying arrival at the new North London
station.
Works about to finish near Brussels South will additionally provide a 4
minute improvement for all Brussels-bound services. Completion of the
dedicated rail link on the British side will allow a significant
potential increase in the number of Eurostar trains serving London.
Grade separation of the CTRL from UK domestic railway services through
Kent, means that timetabling for Eurostar train paths will be unaffected
by peak hour restrictions. After CTRL2 is completed, up to eight trains
per hour in each direction will be able to travel from London to
Continental Europe, moving the bottleneck in capacity to the Channel
Tunnel itself.
Some Eurostar services stop en route to Brussels and Paris. Current
intermediate stations are Ashford International, then Calais-Fréthun and
Lille-Europe in northern France. In addition to the two main destination
cities and their intermediate stops, Eurostar also run daily services to
Disneyland Paris, a weekly summer-time Avignon service and twice weekly
to Bourg-Saint-Maurice, Aime-la-Plagne and Moutiers in the French Alps
for the ski season.
From the 14th of November 2007 all Eurostar trains will be routed via
the CTRL from the newly redeveloped London terminus at St Pancras
International. St Pancras station is being extensively rebuilt and
extended in length to cope with the 394 m Eurostar trains with the
surrounding area being regenerated as King's Cross Central. Originally
the company behind Eurostar had announced its intention to retain some
services to the existing Waterloo International terminal, a plan that
has been ruled out on cost grounds. Some trains to Continental Europe
will serve new stations at Stratford International station in East
London and Ebbsfleet International station in northwest Kent. Stratford
station will be renamed Stratford Regional station when the adjacent
Stratford International station is opened. Services stopping at Ashford
International will be reduced to allow peak-time services to stop
instead at Ebbsfleet. Withdrawing services from a station opened only a
decade ago provoked controversy from the local community, but Eurostar
has rejected accusations that it is "moth-balling" Ashford
International. On 3 April 2007 a petition with 8,000 signatures was
taken to London Waterloo calling for an [EU] enquiry into the impact of
the reduced services from Ashford International.
Eurotunnel, the company that built and runs the Channel Tunnel, is a
completely separate entity from Eurostar.
Eurostar's inaugural journey from Paris to London via a new 186 mph
(300 km/h) high-speed line will arrive at St. Pancras International
station, instead of Waterloo, for the first time. Travel time from Paris
to London will be reduced by 20 minutes and will be available to the
public on 14 November. St. Pancras' revamp and upgrading cost £5.8bn.
On September 4, 2007, the train will pass through the new £100M Ebbsfleet
International station near Dartford, Kent. St. Pancras station will be
connected to the site of the 2012 Olympics at Stratford, London.
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