London to Calais?

[newmilton]

Id drive directly to Boulogne (sur-mer) its about 115 miles from Bromley including the chunnel about 3 hours each way. You can get reasonably priced early morning Shuttles and late night returns anytime away from the school break up and last week times. Theres no motorway toll for Calais- Boulogne.
Alternatively if you don't want to take the car go Newhaven-Dieppe. Newhaven Town station is about 200 years walk from the ferry terminal. Dieppe and the baie de la somme towns and villages are at least as good as Boulogne and very friendly and you can ride on the kent & East Sussex railways twin railway. https://www.chemindefer-baiedesomme.fr/en/welcome

We spent our holidays in Dieppe for several years when our children were younger, and took the Newhaven ferry. Unfortunately Dieppe without a car suffers from being stuck at the end of a branch line from Rouen, which makes getting anywhere else a pain. Boulogne is better connected.

I had hoped to get to the Baie de Somme railway on this trip but the weather was too awful to make it worthwhile. But I have digressed a long way from the topic of the thread, which was London to Calais (and connections).

 

[Newtraveller58]

Yes - there were international trains starting from there years back, though I'm nor sure where to, since personally I mostly only used it for connections to Belgium. (Hook of Holland also used to have through carriages from the dockside to all over Europe - which I used a few times - and at least there's still a good ferry-train connection there [and on the British side too on that route!], even if you now need to start with a metro train for the first leg.)


As flights get more and more restricted, and surface transport takes a larger share of the market, I'd see a possibility for a fast ferry to Ostend from somewhere on the British side with a decent rail connection, and - even if not through international trains - extra capacity from Ostend to Brussels Midi, where there are already quite a few international links. And the idea of one or more of the new European sleeper service starting from Ostend, prior to picking up in Brussels and elsewhere, would be incredibly convenient for Brits, if combined with a fast ferry to Ostend from our side.

I remember back in the late 70s catching the Oostende - Wien express a few yards from the ship in the late afternoon and getting to Wien (Vienna) late morning the following day. I think some trains from Oostende went even further than that.

 

[AlbertBeale]

I remember back in the late 70s catching the Oostende - Wien express a few yards from the ship in the late afternoon and getting to Wien (Vienna) late morning the following day. I think some trains from Oostende went even further than that.

At least one - maybe both - of Ostend and Hook once had through carriages from the quayside as far as Moscow.

 

[Cloud Strife]

A fast ferry is very expensive to run because you need a lot more power to push through water than, say, air. And that means powerful engines, so you'd need a new design of fast ferry to be zero emissions which is going to cost a fortune to develop for a limited market.
Maybe if you installed chargers on the car deck you might have a USP. However I think you are more likely to see a return of Eurostar stopping at Calais than a fast ferry.

Yes, agreed. Fast ferries are also really affected by the weather in the Channel, so I very much doubt that they'll ever make a return. No-one (except Condor) has stuck with high speed ferries, unless you count Brittany's charter of Condor's Liberation during weekends in summer. Even then, it's obvious that Condor only took Liberation because they got a good deal on her.

I also don't think speed is actually that important anymore on UK-Continent routes. We've seen the same process unfold elsewhere, like on the Irish Sea, where longer but faster routes lost out to slower and shorter routes, and I just don't see anyone lining up for fast ferries from Dover to Ostend or Boulogne. Even on Helsinki-Tallinn, the fast ferries have died a death, with customers preferring more comfortable but longer sailings.

I think it's also worth remembering that flying is still very, very cheap compared to what it was in the old days.

 

[Trainbike46]

At least one - maybe both - of Ostend and Hook once had through carriages from the quayside as far as Moscow.

These definitely existed from Hook of Holland, maybe from Oostende as well

 

[riceuten]

Foot passengers are definitely seen as an inconvenience on ferries nowadays, and space that could have been sold to someone with a vehicle (I'm just surmising here). Numerous travel vloggers like Steve Marsh and the very wonderful "Planes, Trains, Everything" have said as much

 

[paul1609]

Foot passengers are definitely seen as an inconvenience on ferries nowadays, and space that could have been sold to someone with a vehicle (I'm just surmising here). Numerous travel vloggers like Steve Marsh and the very wonderful "Planes, Trains, Everything" have said as much

On fast turnround frequent service, short routes like anything out of Dover I'd agree. On stuff like Newhaven Diepe there's still a fair few foot passengers and they seem happy to accommodate them.

 

[zwk500]

Foot passengers are definitely seen as an inconvenience on ferries nowadays, and space that could have been sold to someone with a vehicle (I'm just surmising here). Numerous travel vloggers like Steve Marsh and the very wonderful "Planes, Trains, Everything" have said as much

On Dover-Calais, with high demand and short crossings, definitely. The loading turnrounds need to be quick and foot passengers cost a lot to service without having that long on board to shop. On longer crossings with less pressure on space and turnround, as well as more time to persuade people to buy something to keep them going, they are more welcome.

 

[riceuten]

On fast turnround frequent service, short routes like anything out of Dover I'd agree. On stuff like Newhaven Diepe there's still a fair few foot passengers and they seem happy to accommodate them.

It's a commercial choice, to be fair.

 

[zwk500]

It's a commercial choice, to be fair.

Remember that at a big port like Dover or Calais you also have the hassle of bussing foot passengers between the boats and the terminal, and then they have to be able to make their onwards journey. Dover and Calais ports aren't well connected for rail, whereas e.g. Newhaven is just across the road, and also at Newcastle the foot passenger bus takes a member of staff just a moment to jump in and do the run while at Dover it would take quite a lot longer, and you'd need to meet all the boats, etc.

 

[Trainbike46]

Foot passengers are definitely seen as an inconvenience on ferries nowadays, and space that could have been sold to someone with a vehicle (I'm just surmising here). Numerous travel vloggers like Steve Marsh and the very wonderful "Planes, Trains, Everything" have said as much

On some routes, certainly.

However, on most routes the limiting factor isn't passenger numbers, so taking foot passengers doesn't reduce the number of vehicles that can be taken on board, so that is not usually the motivation. It's more around the logistical difficulty and/or cost in loading/unloading foot passengers, whether with buses or with gangways. Particularly for quick turn-around ferries that is challenging.

On routes like Belfast-Cairnryan foot passengers are usually quite numerous, and appear to be a part of the business model, based on the amount of advertising and promotion stena directs toward things like Glasgow day trips (from Belfast) and Belfast day trips (from SW Scotland).

 

[zwk500]

It is worth bearing in mind Dover-Calais is just in a different order of magnitude from all other Ferry route in the UK, see this graphic from the UK Govt. It doesn't include GB-NI as they're not international but the point is clear, Dover-Calais is 3 times bigger than the next highest passenger numbers:

Map 2: Top 5 international short sea routes by number of passengers (millions) in 2021 and change from 2020 (SPAS0102)

Sea passenger statistics, all routes: 2021

www.gov.uk

 

[jfollows]

At least one - maybe both - of Ostend and Hook once had through carriages from the quayside as far as Moscow.

I used the train from Moscow to Ostend in 1984, having previously gone from Japan to Irkutsk by boat and train and then flown Irkutsk-Moscow.
My main memory is of waking up in West Germany and observing the relative affluence (Mercedes parked outside every house) after days in East Germany and the then Soviet Union.

 

[riceuten]

I did Calais Maritime to Basel in the 1970s with the school. As I recall, there was through carriage from Milan to Calais on the return.

 

[Trainbike46]

It is worth bearing in mind Dover-Calais is just in a different order of magnitude from all other Ferry route in the UK, see this graphic from the UK Govt. It doesn't include GB-NI as they're not international but the point is clear, Dover-Calais is 3 times bigger than the next highest passenger numbers:

Map 2: Top 5 international short sea routes by number of passengers (millions) in 2021 and change from 2020 (SPAS0102)

Sea passenger statistics, all routes: 2021

www.gov.uk

The dover routes are on an entirely different scale than the others, that is very clear
your page also includes the domestic routes in a separate table, and I found some interesting stuff there:

-After Dover-Calais, Dover-Dunkirk & Holyhead-Dublin, Cairnryan-Belfast is the next busiest ferry route from the UK
-Liverpool-Belfast massively outperformed all other routes, with passenger numbers in 2021 54% above a 2019 baseline, and 2022 being even higher

 

[paul1609]

The dover routes are on an entirely different scale than the others, that is very clear
your page also includes the domestic routes in a separate table, and I found some interesting stuff there:

-After Dover-Calais, Dover-Dunkirk & Holyhead-Dublin, Cairnryan-Belfast is the next busiest ferry route from the UK
-Liverpool-Belfast massively outperformed all other routes, with passenger numbers in 2021 54% above a 2019 baseline, and 2022 being even higher

Im going on the Liverpool to Belfast ferry in mid Sept. Its my first ever visit to Northern Ireland (and Donegal) although Ive been to the Republic several times.
I guess that Game of Thrones, Titanic and relative political stability has now made it an interesting place for tourists from the Southeast. A number of people Ive discussed going on holiday to Northern Ireland with have said "oh Belfast, that's on my to do list". Im flying back to Heathrow from Londonderry, I think that'll be my smallest ever plane in to Heathrow for an additional bit of interest.

 

[Ediswan]

As there seems to be a well of knowledge here, a side question.

In 1977, I went on a school trip to Berlin. Travel included:
- Ferry from Dover to X
- Day train from X to Cologne
- Sleeper from Cologne to Berlin

What I can't recall for sure is whether X was Ostend or Zeebrugge. Which seems more likely ?

 

[Tester]

As there seems to be a well of knowledge here, a side question.

In 1977, I went on a school trip to Berlin. Travel included:
- Ferry from Dover to X
- Day train from X to Cologne
- Sleeper from Cologne to Berlin

What I can't recall for sure is whether X was Ostend or Zeebrugge. Which seems more likely ?

Ostend

Zeebrugge had local trains only

 

[AlbertBeale]

As there seems to be a well of knowledge here, a side question.

In 1977, I went on a school trip to Berlin. Travel included:
- Ferry from Dover to X
- Day train from X to Cologne
- Sleeper from Cologne to Berlin

What I can't recall for sure is whether X was Ostend or Zeebrugge. Which seems more likely ?

I did two school trips to Italy in the mid-sixties. The one I remember most clearly definitely went via Basle en route through Switzerland (I remember the shunting of bits of the train - presumably to switch through connections - and the train stopping both in the "French station" and in the main station). Very annoyingly, I can now remember very little of the routings at all - except that on one trip we got off the train somewhere in Switzerland and travelled down a lake on a boat (where we had a meal), before picking up a train again at the other end of the lake. My postcards home (some of which I still have in my archives) didn't go into that sort of detail. If anyone has any ideas of what would have been the normal route, I'd be pleased to hear... Certainly at least one trip - presumably both - left from Victoria, so I imagine we went via Dover Marine to Calais or Boulogne.

 

[dutchflyer]

We never had the excitement of going abroad for schooltrips in those years. Would have needed a full passport too in those years. Even when the catholic Jesuits who ran the high school had friends/other settlements about everywhere and certainly in Italy.
For Swiss then: basically there were from Basel just 2 main lines going south to Italy, the Gotthard and the Lötschberg. The Lötschberg, via Bern-Spiez-Brig passed a double lake near Thun and also had more raillines along it, so I bet this must have been it. On the side of that lake was a long time regional trolleybusline too. In the right season about any Swiss lake has a type of boat service and at those times even more.

 

[rvdborgt]

We never had the excitement of going abroad for schooltrips in those years. Would have needed a full passport too in those years.

Of course, since Dutch ID cards didn't exist yet. I got my first passport for a school trip to Paris.

 

[Sir Felix Pole]

I did two school trips to Italy in the mid-sixties. The one I remember most clearly definitely went via Basle en route through Switzerland (I remember the shunting of bits of the train - presumably to switch through connections - and the train stopping both in the "French station" and in the main station). Very annoyingly, I can now remember very little of the routings at all - except that on one trip we got off the train somewhere in Switzerland and travelled down a lake on a boat (where we had a meal), before picking up a train again at the other end of the lake. My postcards home (some of which I still have in my archives) didn't go into that sort of detail. If anyone has any ideas of what would have been the normal route, I'd be pleased to hear... Certainly at least one trip - presumably both - left from Victoria, so I imagine we went via Dover Marine to Calais or Boulogne.

The normal routing to Basel from Calais by the '60s was Valenciennes, Sedan, Metz and Strasbourg. Sadly Valenciennes to Sedan (-Thionville) only has a very thin local service today. The infamous 'Napoli Express' ran via Paris, however, and departed variously from Boulogne or Calais over the years. The through Naples cars were worked around from the Gare du Nord to the Gare de Lyon and attached to the main train. From Paris it ran via Dijon and into Italy via Modane. I say infamous because it was often very crowded and the tanks ran out of water over such a long run.

 

[Ediswan]

Ostend

Zeebrugge had local trains only

Thanks.

 

[30907]

I did two school trips to Italy in the mid-sixties. The one I remember most clearly definitely went via Basle en route through Switzerland (I remember the shunting of bits of the train - presumably to switch through connections - and the train stopping both in the "French station" and in the main station). Very annoyingly, I can now remember very little of the routings at all - except that on one trip we got off the train somewhere in Switzerland and travelled down a lake on a boat (where we had a meal), before picking up a train again at the other end of the lake. My postcards home (some of which I still have in my archives) didn't go into that sort of detail. If anyone has any ideas of what would have been the normal route, I'd be pleased to hear... Certainly at least one trip - presumably both - left from Victoria, so I imagine we went via Dover Marine to Calais or Boulogne.

Sir Felix Pole has described the main route, but it was possible in summer to go Boulogne-Laon-Belfort-Basel. Going to Italy the lake would be Lucerne (Vierwaldstättersee) and you'd have rejoined the railway at Fluelen. Lake Thun ends at Interlaken which is offroute so unlikely - and AFAIK Basel-Milan wasn't normally routed that way then.

 

[urpert]

These definitely existed from Hook of Holland, maybe from Oostende as well

I still have my 1995 Rough Guide to Moscow which contains the following advice:

"There are no direct train services from London to Moscow, but there are daily through trains from Ostend. To make the connection you must set off early from London Victoria and take the boat train via the Dover/Ostend ferry crossing. An alternative route, which takes you via the Harwich/Hook of Holland ferry, takes significantly longer, requires a change of trains in Berlin and is no cheaper once you've added the obligatory night-crossing supplement.

At Ostend, you'll step into a Russian wagon that's visibly shabbier than the other carriages in the train. Its staff and (few) other passengers will all be Russian, providing a chance to familiarise yourself with the language and habits of the natives. Whichever route you take, bring food and drink for the whole journey, as there4's nothing available in the wagon except hot water from the samovar, and the odd can of beer.

The route will take you through Germany, Poland and Belarus. The most stringent customs check comes at Brest on the Poland-Belarus border, where trains are jacked-up in order to change their bogies to fit the Russian network, whose wide gauge was designed to make it difficult for invaders to use the network."

Seems hard to believe this was as recent as 1995, it already feels like another world (and makes me sad I never experienced it - my trips to Russia in the 90s were all by air).

 

[jfollows]

I still have my 1995 Rough Guide to Moscow which contains the following advice:

"There are no direct train services from London to Moscow, but there are daily through trains from Ostend. To make the connection you must set off early from London Victoria and take the boat train via the Dover/Ostend ferry crossing. An alternative route, which takes you via the Harwich/Hook of Holland ferry, takes significantly longer, requires a change of trains in Berlin and is no cheaper once you've added the obligatory night-crossing supplement.

At Ostend, you'll step into a Russian wagon that's visibly shabbier than the other carriages in the train. Its staff and (few) other passengers will all be Russian, providing a chance to familiarise yourself with the language and habits of the natives. Whichever route you take, bring food and drink for the whole journey, as there4's nothing available in the wagon except hot water from the samovar, and the odd can of beer.

The route will take you through Germany, Poland and Belarus. The most stringent customs check comes at Brest on the Poland-Belarus border, where trains are jacked-up in order to change their bogies to fit the Russian network, whose wide gauge was designed to make it difficult for invaders to use the network."

Seems hard to believe this was as recent as 1995, it already feels like another world (and makes me sad I never experienced it - my trips to Russia in the 90s were all by air).

Yes, that's what I did, albeit in the reverse direction (starting in Moscow) in summer 1984.
My memories:

• Changing at Brest, or rather having the wheels changed. This coincided with currency exchange, in which I exchanged my roubles for pounds, conditional on the amount being less than the amount I obtained when I entered the country from Japan a few days earlier.
• Talking to the Intourist "watcher" in German, and being tickled when she asked me to switch to French.
• A bit later, taking pictures of the steam locomotive which shunted our train on arrival at the East German border, although a man with a gun told me off and I said I was sorry.
• Being too tired to stay awake going through East Berlin. Although my experience was that the customs check was more stringent here than it had been at Brest.

After a week in the Soviet Union, and then on the train from Moscow, I remember heading for the restaurant on the ferry from Ostend and having a very nice meal before getting the train from Dover to London.

PS It was very politely made clear to me that my job offer with a certain government establishment in Cheltenham probably wouldn't be honoured if I went to the Soviet Union on my own. It was very nicely put and made clear that a tour party would probably be OK. Anyway, I wanted to travel more than I wanted that job.

 

[urpert]

Yes, that's what I did, albeit in the reverse direction (starting in Moscow) in summer 1984.
My memories:

• Changing at Brest, or rather having the wheels changed. This coincided with currency exchange, in which I exchanged my roubles for pounds, conditional on the amount being less than the amount I obtained when I entered the country from Japan a few days earlier.
• Talking to the Intourist "watcher" in German, and being tickled when she asked me to switch to French.
• A bit later, taking pictures of the steam locomotive which shunted our train on arrival at the East German border, although a man with a gun told me off and I said I was sorry.
• Being too tired to stay awake going through East Berlin. Although my experience was that the customs check was more stringent here than it had been at Brest.

After a week in the Soviet Union, and then on the train from Moscow, I remember heading for the restaurant on the ferry from Ostend and having a very nice meal before getting the train from Dover to London.

PS It was very politely made clear to me that my job offer with a certain government establishment in Cheltenham probably wouldn't be honoured if I went to the Soviet Union on my own. It was very nicely put and made clear that a tour party would probably be OK. Anyway, I wanted to travel more than I wanted that job.

Thanks for sharing. I could read this sort of thing all day!

(London-Zagreb is probably my most adventurous rail journey to date.)

 

[AlbertBeale]

Sir Felix Pole has described the main route, but it was possible in summer to go Boulogne-Laon-Belfort-Basel. Going to Italy the lake would be Lucerne (Vierwaldstättersee) and you'd have rejoined the railway at Fluelen. Lake Thun ends at Interlaken which is offroute so unlikely - and AFAIK Basel-Milan wasn't normally routed that way then.

Aha - thanks - that helps me with a bit of my own personal history!

I still have my 1995 Rough Guide to Moscow which contains the following advice:

"There are no direct train services from London to Moscow, but there are daily through trains from Ostend. To make the connection you must set off early from London Victoria and take the boat train via the Dover/Ostend ferry crossing. An alternative route, which takes you via the Harwich/Hook of Holland ferry, takes significantly longer, requires a change of trains in Berlin and is no cheaper once you've added the obligatory night-crossing supplement.

At Ostend, you'll step into a Russian wagon that's visibly shabbier than the other carriages in the train. Its staff and (few) other passengers will all be Russian, providing a chance to familiarise yourself with the language and habits of the natives. Whichever route you take, bring food and drink for the whole journey, as there4's nothing available in the wagon except hot water from the samovar, and the odd can of beer.

The route will take you through Germany, Poland and Belarus. The most stringent customs check comes at Brest on the Poland-Belarus border, where trains are jacked-up in order to change their bogies to fit the Russian network, whose wide gauge was designed to make it difficult for invaders to use the network."

Seems hard to believe this was as recent as 1995, it already feels like another world (and makes me sad I never experienced it - my trips to Russia in the 90s were all by air).

Fascinating - though I'm surprised if the Soviet track gauge was deliberately designed as an anti-invasion measure (useful though that later turned out to be), given the era when track gauges were being fixed and standardised.

My experience of the hours-long period it took to change the bogies at the border of the Soviet-etc area was at Grodno in Belarus, heading "west" on a through train from Estonia to Poland [those were the days!] that went through a corner of Belarus (this was the early 1990s). As I'm sure I related in more detail on another thread somewhere, I spent most of the time arguing with Belarus border officials in a hut by the side of the track, after I refused to let them bully me into paying hard currency for a transit visa which I didn't need.