Le Shuttle - could it include a walk-on passenger coach ?

[yorksrob]

I was thinking the other day, back when the Chunnel opened, it was straight forward. Cars and lorries would get the shuttle, passengers would get the Eurostar.

But now things are different. Eurostar is priced as a premium service. It doesn't even stop in Kent anymore.

Could their be a case for adding a passenger coach to each shuttle which would act as a sort of "walk-on" ferry service ?

It could be priced cheaply, public transport could be extended to the terminals in Cheriton and Calais. The only issue I could see might be parking, but I'm sure that could be overcome. If you just had one of these passenger carriages on each shuttle, the capacity would be quite large.

Le Shuttle already contains a passenger carriage for lorry drivers, so it's not beyond the realms of fantasy.

 

[thaitransit]

Or just run the eurostar far more frequently eg every 30 minutes to Paris and Amsterdam and reduce the fares to encourage regular commuting between the 3 city pairs of Paris, London and Amsterdam.

 

[yorksrob]

That would be an option, however there seems to be no commercial desire to.

Thinking about it, they could run a minibus between the terminal and Folkestone West to provide public transport connections. If you were being ambitious, you could reopen some facilities in the fairly extensive buildings at that station.

 

[Dr Hoo]

Is it not possible for a (passenger-carrying) road coach to use the vehicle shuttle?

 

[yorksrob]

Is it not possible for a (passenger-carrying) road coach to use the vehicle shuttle?

It is, but then you'd be sat on a coach all the way.

That said, I suppose someone could run a road coach service from (say) Folkestone West to the station at Calais. You could even run it through to Le Touquet for maximum tourist appeal.

 

[JamesT]

Is it not possible for a (passenger-carrying) road coach to use the vehicle shuttle?

Yes, Flixbus runs various services between the UK and Europe. Some use the tunnel and some use ferries. Though the only route from Folkestone itself appears to be Amsterdam.

 

[Zomboid]

How would pedestrians access the train? The terminal is somewhat set up for vehicles.

There are many options for people without cars to cross the channel at various price points - the ferries, Eurostar, air travel... Adding a passenger car to the shuttles is a solution seeking a problem.

 

[yorksrob]

How would pedestrians access the train? The terminal is somewhat set up for vehicles.

There are many options for people without cars to cross the channel at various price points - the ferries, Eurostar, air travel... Adding a passenger car to the shuttles is a solution seeking a problem.

I've been reading that the ferries aren't taking foot passengers so much anymore. The shuttle would effectively become a ferry.

Minibus to Folkestone West is my proposal

 

[HSTEd]

I would suggest that the best way to improve the capable of the channel to serve foot passengers would just be to run an hourly coach/bus from Folkestone West to Calais Frethun.

I don't think a coach or bus is particularly uncomfortable when its not moving, there is no engine noise etc, and of course if its a single decker they can simply walk around as car owners do.

 

[Oxfordblues]

You'd get all sorts of characters turning-up at Calais who don't want to risk crossing in a rubber dinghy. It would be quite a security challenge.

 

[JamesT]

You'd get all sorts of characters turning-up at Calais who don't want to risk crossing in a rubber dinghy. It would be quite a security challenge.

Any more of a challenge than the existing one of coaches that come from further afield? Coaches already have to go through security before getting on LeShuttle.
I would suggest that given the relative ease of setting up such an operation, that there isn’t one already perhaps signifies there isn’t a massive level of demand.

 

[Nottingham59]

The 2230h Flixbus services from London to Ghent tonight already goes via Eurotunnel. But it doesn't seen to pick up at Folkestone or set down at Calais. I'm sure Flixbus would do so if it thought there was a market for it.

 

[AlterEgo]

I would suggest that the best way to improve the capable of the channel to serve foot passengers would just be to run an hourly coach/bus from Folkestone West to Calais Frethun.

I don't think a coach or bus is particularly uncomfortable when its not moving, there is no engine noise etc, and of course if its a single decker they can simply walk around as car owners do.

If i recall you can also get off the coach when it is safely parked on the train and stretch your legs for half an hour.

 

[Bletchleyite]

For a while Connex used to run a road coach in this way. It was killed off largely because Eurotunnel wouldn't guarantee it to get on specific departures so its punctuality was woeful. Now it's more of a prebooked service than it was (back then drive up, pay a fixed price and queue was how it mostly worked), it might well work a bit better.

In terms of immigration processing it'd be the same as a tourist coach - people get off and have their passports and bags checked in an airport style hall, they check the coach is empty, then they get back on.

 

[Shaw S Hunter]

I'm sure Flixbus would do so if it thought there was a market for it.

I would suggest that given the relative ease of setting up such an operation, that there isn’t one already perhaps signifies there isn’t a massive level of demand.

These two quotes provide a very good answer to the OP's question. Anyone wanting to use such a service would surely be reliant on further public transport options at one end or the other. Outwith greater Lille neither Kent nor Nord-Pas de Calais are particularly well provided for. It's not going to happen.

 

[AndrewE]

These two quotes provide a very good answer to the OP's question.

I disagree, as classic passenger routes across the channel have almost disappeared - via the short sea crossing anyway. A useable option would be very welcome.

Anyone wanting to use such a service would surely be reliant on further public transport options at one end or the other. Outwith greater Lille neither Kent nor Nord-Pas de Calais are particularly well provided for.

Folkestone has 4 departures an hour including one via HS1 to London taking less than an hour. Lille has trains to lots of places too, so to write it off based on such a sweeping dismissal of public transport provision is a pretty shallow assessment. I can see that le Shuttle terminals are totally unsuited to walk-up passengers so a passenger coach is probably out of the question, but the minibus/coach option looks good to me.

It's not going to happen.

With decent advertising and sensible schedules and customs arrangements I think Folkestone to Lille could very well be a success. The initial overheads would be minimal and it would be very easily scaled up....

 

[Shaw S Hunter]

I disagree, as classic passenger routes across the channel have almost disappeared - via the short sea crossing anyway. A useable option would be very welcome.

There's a reason for that: demand! The overwhelmingly vast majority of cross-Channel trips are part of much longer journeys so that over the long-term it made sense to consolidate the number of routes/ships operated.

This is an island nation and the Channel Tunnel hasn't changed how that affects our perception of international travel. We may travel more than ever but "going abroad" is still an event needing a certain amount of planning and preparation. I see no evidence to suggest that the residents of Kent are yearning to become border hoppers nipping over to France on a regular basis if only "they" would provide the facilities to do so.

Folkestone has 4 departures an hour including one via HS1 to London taking less than an hour. Lille has trains to lots of places too, so to write it off based on such a sweeping dismissal of public transport provision is a pretty shallow assessment.

Folkestone's train services are very much geared up for travel to/from London and many more local links are only hourly. And while greater Lille does have a reasonable regional rail network for the most part as a visitor you have to get to Lille in the first place. There's no high frequency service to/from Calais.

With decent advertising and sensible schedules and customs arrangements I think Folkestone to Lille could very well be a success. The initial overheads would be minimal and it would be very easily scaled up....

But what is the market? Are there really thousands wanting to make regular trips from Canterbury to Arras or Deal to Hazebrouck? The geography is actually not likely to generate much demand because behind the French coast lie many miles of relative emptiness before you find any decent sized towns.

I can't help feeling this suggestion is being driven by nostalgia for a time when such journeys were still theoretically possible but only made by tiny numbers of people. The world moves on.

 

[Shimbleshanks]

For a while Connex used to run a road coach in this way. It was killed off largely because Eurotunnel wouldn't guarantee it to get on specific departures so its punctuality was woeful. Now it's more of a prebooked service than it was (back then drive up, pay a fixed price and queue was how it mostly worked), it might well work a bit better.

In terms of immigration processing it'd be the same as a tourist coach - people get off and have their passports and bags checked in an airport style hall, they check the coach is empty, then they get back on.

I remember that service. It ran from Ashford station to Calais centre and shopping city, I recall. We used to use it quite a bit back in the day and it was always reasonably well patronised when we were on it - admittedly that was mostly on a Saturday which was probably its busiest day. I can't remember timekeeping and not getting on shuttles being much of an issue.

 

[SynthD]

I disagree, as classic passenger routes across the channel have almost disappeared - via the short sea crossing anyway. A useable option would be very welcome.

I remember reading, probably on this forum, how poor the experience is for a foot passenger on a ferry. The ports at both ends are industrial to an unfriendly level. This is largely unknown because there are so few foot passengers, despite many people saying it’s an appealing idea. Flixbus are well placed to know the demand and provide the cheapest option. Are their senior staff chatty on Twitter, would they answer a probing question?

 

[Starmill]

This would definitely only work if it were offered at a single low price via Southeastern and the bus. If I won the lottery I would offer this for a few years and see how it went but it'd depend on Southeastern offering a quota at a cheap rate. They'd have to be willing to offer £15-20 for London to Folkestone and that'd put tickets at break even somewhere around the £50 mark. The bus would need to stop at Calais Ville too so it wouldn't be a quick circuit by any means. Now would be the perfect time to start offering it too because you'd get enormous free publicity and the MPs who've been banging on about Eurostar serving Kent again would have little choice other than to give you quotes of support. I still don't think there's any profit in doing it though.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 18 Oct 2025 ==

Or just run the eurostar far more frequently eg every 30 minutes to Paris and Amsterdam and reduce the fares to encourage regular commuting between the 3 city pairs of Paris, London and Amsterdam.

4tph on Eurostar? Really?

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 18 Oct 2025 ==

How would pedestrians access the train? The terminal is somewhat set up for vehicles.

There are many options for people without cars to cross the channel at various price points - the ferries, Eurostar, air travel... Adding a passenger car to the shuttles is a solution seeking a problem.

There are only two ferries a day, on P&O.

 

[doiheart]

I don't know if it's still going but you used to be able to take cycles on the Eurotunnel. We showed up round the back of Folkestone West where there was a chap (and his wife) with a minibus and trailer. The cycles loaded on the trailer, we got on the minibus and negotiated the tunnel that way. We were dropped off in the staff car park of the Eurotunnel offices outside Calais.

I imagine it was some kind of contractual obligation but certainly a foot passenger service could work a similar way.

 

[izvor]

I'd use such a service, and I live in the south-east. I've not used Eurostar since it moved out of Waterloo, as travelling across London and then back down again is just not attractive, so I'm forced to fly from Gatwick for even short-haul routes. Ashford International was useful but the domestic train connections for the sparse early & late trains were not good. Newhaven-Dieppe is great but a long haul compared to the short hop from Dover/Folkestone, and serves two relatively inconvenient ports (and is heavily subsidised by France).

Before Eurotunnel, a fast train to Dover Marine then straight onto a seacat to Oostende, or foot ferry from Eastern Docks to Calais via bus link, was just the easiest and best in my view.

South-east England and North-east France are well populated so there must be a latent demand for leisure and business travel between the two that's just not met except by driving. Ashford has become a destination in its own right, and is a short hop from tourist magnets like Canterbury and Rye. New traffic could be generated over time, together with modal shift from cars and flights, by an attractive and affordable offer. However starting any such "local" service, whether by train, bus via Eurotunnel or new foot passenger facilities is not likely to happen without initial government (local and/or national) backing imho, and that's pretty much impossible for now due to (a) the eternal budget deficit, (b) Kent now under Reform UK (can you imagine the fireworks?) and (c) Brexit, with this month's new EU and French entry requirements - forking out for health insurance for a day trip, anyone?

Add (d) insular thinking, mainly from the UK side, in strategic planning and politics and you have a big wasted opportunity in my view.

 

[stadler]

For a while Connex used to run a road coach in this way. It was killed off largely because Eurotunnel wouldn't guarantee it to get on specific departures so its punctuality was woeful. Now it's more of a prebooked service than it was (back then drive up, pay a fixed price and queue was how it mostly worked), it might well work a bit better.

In terms of immigration processing it'd be the same as a tourist coach - people get off and have their passports and bags checked in an airport style hall, they check the coach is empty, then they get back on.

It was normally a Dennis Dart SLF rather than a coach. Connex did indeed used to run an hourly Eurotunnel bus service for foot passengers. It ran from Ashford railway station to Calais railway station with stops in Cheriton and Coquelles too outside the Eurotunnel terminals. It had a very good frequency being hourly from early morning to late evening.

I remember they had a fleet of Dennis Dart SLF buses as the regular vehicles on it. I recall the fares were £10.00 single or £15.00 return which even back then was fairly good value. Unfortunately it only lasted for just over six or seven months. It was very short lived and i remember it was quite poorly advertised too.

I would like to see a service like this return. I think it could be successful if it was well advertised. Especially connecting with trains at both Ashford station and the two Calais stations. Even better work with SE and TER and introduce through tickets from London to Paris and other destinations using this Eurotunnel bus.

 

[yorksrob]

These two quotes provide a very good answer to the OP's question. Anyone wanting to use such a service would surely be reliant on further public transport options at one end or the other. Outwith greater Lille neither Kent nor Nord-Pas de Calais are particularly well provided for. It's not going to happen.

On the contrary, Kent certainly has very good train services.

 

[Trainlog]

I was thinking the other day, back when the Chunnel opened, it was straight forward. Cars and lorries would get the shuttle, passengers would get the Eurostar.

But now things are different. Eurostar is priced as a premium service. It doesn't even stop in Kent anymore.

Could their be a case for adding a passenger coach to each shuttle which would act as a sort of "walk-on" ferry service ?

It could be priced cheaply, public transport could be extended to the terminals in Cheriton and Calais. The only issue I could see might be parking, but I'm sure that could be overcome. If you just had one of these passenger carriages on each shuttle, the capacity would be quite large.

Le Shuttle already contains a passenger carriage for lorry drivers, so it's not beyond the realms of fantasy.

To be honest, I would rather have actual International services back at Ashford International & Ebbsfleet than this. This to me, is rather inefficient as a solution, with buses having to be threaded into the equation at Folkestone and Calais at both sides.

International services resuming in Kent should be in the form of trains stopping at Ashford International or Ebbsfleet, providing locals an opportunity to explore the continent via train (through leaving the car at home) without needing to go up to London on HS1 congesting St Pancras and for those from the continent (primarily France, Belgium, the Netherlands) can visit Kent on a day trip to places such as Canterbury from Ashford.

Further benefits being that Ashford and Ebbsfleet act as a Motorway Gateway station for those who don't want to deal with London's expensive hotels or taking luggage on the Underground. I also wish that, as part of the terms of HS1, the withdrawal of Kent International services could never happen again if International services resumed.

 

[Shimbleshanks]

Some of the pre-tunnel rail/sea services weren't bad. Train to Dover, straight onto a fast Seacat, straight onto the train in Ostend - around 5 hours to Brussels perhaps? I also found the Dover/Calais hovercraft quick and convenient and there was a coach service on this too as I recall. None of it was as quick as Eurostar, but a lot more affordable, and often more reliable. Not sure that the foot passenger has gained that much from the billions spent building the Tunnel...

 

[Shaw S Hunter]

On the contrary, Kent certainly has very good train services.

Fine for journeys to London but many local links are only hourly. And for a shire county in the wealthier corner of England Kent has decidedly poor bus services. Though the Pas-de-Calais region is even worse.

Not sure that the foot passenger has gained that much from the billions spent building the Tunnel...

Or could it be that most foot passengers of old are now much better served by Eurostar? The numbers making more local cross-Channel journeys are simply not enough to justify optimising a set-up specifically for their needs. How many here have ever made a journey whose endpoints were both between London and Lille? And how often are/were such journeys undertaken? Given the geography of Northern France why would you make such a journey without a car?

 

[HSTEd]

To be honest, I would rather have actual International services back at Ashford International & Ebbsfleet than this. This to me, is rather inefficient as a solution, with buses having to be threaded into the equation at Folkestone and Calais at both sides.

International services resuming in Kent should be in the form of trains stopping at Ashford International or Ebbsfleet, providing locals an opportunity to explore the continent via train (through leaving the car at home) without needing to go up to London on HS1 congesting St Pancras and for those from the continent (primarily France, Belgium, the Netherlands) can visit Kent on a day trip to places such as Canterbury from Ashford.

Further benefits being that Ashford and Ebbsfleet act as a Motorway Gateway station for those who don't want to deal with London's expensive hotels or taking luggage on the Underground. I also wish that, as part of the terms of HS1, the withdrawal of Kent International services could never happen again if International services resumed.

A rail solution might be preferable, but would also be orders of magnitude more expensive than paying a bus or three to do some loops.

 

[Starmill]

On the contrary, Kent certainly has very good train services.

There's a usable service from Calais but it's probably not what you'd call good.

On weekdays there are departures towards Lille at:

• 0531 (Ville)
• 0607 (Frethun)
• 0632 (Ville)
• 0733 (Ville)
• 0735 (Frethun)
• 0829 (Frethun)
• 0833 (Ville)
• 0840 (Ville, change at Hazebrouck)
• 0900 (Ville, change at Dunkerque)
• 1008 (Frethun)
• 1032 (Ville)
• 1133 (Ville)
• 1227 (Frethun)
• 1245 (Ville, change at Hazebrouck)
• 1302 (Ville, change at Dunkerque)
• 1433 (Ville)
• 1531 (Ville)
• 1544 (Ville, change at Hazebrouck)
• 1549 (Ville, change at Dunkerque)
• 1632 (Ville)
• 1716 (Frethun)
• 1730 (Ville)
• 1807 (Frethun)
• 1831 (Ville)
• 1904 (Ville, change at Frethun, dep 1918)
• 1932 (Ville)
• 2030 (Frethun)
• 2032 (Ville)

Important though that there's a €2 supplement (sometimes less if paid for by purchasing the GV Inclus or high speed inclusive tariff) charged for the departures from Frethun or in those cases the connecting trains from Dunkerque. I don't think many people would bother with a change of train for a journey like this either. And Frethun station is a little bit of an inhospitable location.

A regional style bus service absolutely couldn't connect onto those last two departures from each station - the risk of missing the connection is too big. But as you can see, until approximately 1930 there is a sensible, albeit not frequent, service. So a last departure from Folkestone by 1500 and a good choice of very early morning departures would probably actually enable some pretty good connections.

The downside to this idea is that Folkestone West only has arrivals from Ashford International and stations via Folkestone Central that early in the morning. The first train from London isn't until 0759 so a bus at say 0825 may be the first one for that. So you may end up with say 0725 - 1425 departures every hour but not much more, and the 0725 would only have a connection into it from as far west as Tonbridge. The package could optionally include the TER tarif standard from Calais to Lille which can be used on any direct service, subject to the supplement if using the high speed service from Frethun.

 

[signed]

There's a usable service from Calais but it's probably not what you'd call good.

That looks like a normal French-level TER service TBF