Forest Depot in Brussels also maintains a wide range of trains, including Eurostar (Red&Blue), TGVs and ICEs
There is a big difference between maintenance and overnight servicing. Watergraafsmeer is not a NightJet or Eurostar blue maintainer, for example. It’s just overnight servicing such as cleaning, toilet tanking etc. Maintenance is elsewhere: Temple Mills for Eurostar, Austria for NightJet.
NS has four maintenance locations: Leidschendam, Onnen, Maastricht (FLIRT only), and Watergraafsmeer; I agree they don't normally do heavy maintenance on non-NS stock, but they do have maintenance facilities. There is also the overhaul facility at Haarlem for midlife refurbishments.
When I'm not mistaken, the ICE3M sets that were owned by NS actually had their maintenance in Leidschendam in their first years.
I would presume they would still need a security sweep afterwards too though, regardless of where the terminus is. (E.g you wouldn’t want someone taking a Eurostar from Paris to London and leaving a “suspicious” package behind in the train before leaving the train).
London to Nice would actually be a very popular route in the summer - however the current Marseille to Ventimiliga line is already at capacity and this won't be viable until LGV PACA is built, if ever.
To be honest this thread could just become a general discussion for their plans as it was moved from T&R.S. anyway.
Although Temple Mills is nearest to London, if all they really need in UK is a cleaning and light servicing location (not a maintenance depot, because maintenance is done in Europe) then in theory there are other locations available, so lay a few sidings, and some cleaning walkways
The HS1-HS2 link was given up by the government many years ago , but I still doubt there is sufficient space in Camden. Camden's been heavily redeveloped in the past few years.
That would seem the most plausible candidate, I would have thought.
It's certainly where I'd build one - and I'd leave the connection to the classic line in place so that components could be delivered by rail without having to involve the high speed line.
I think the only vaguely realistic way of doing it is to convert the Primrose Hill line into a HS1-HS2 connection. This would mean sending all freight via Hampstead, which is not ideal but not the end of the world.
I guess with a connection from HS2 to the WCML in the Willesden area, but at that point you might as well build a dedicated connection bypassing the WCML. That said I'm not too sure of the geography in this area and whether it's even possible.
Virgin has proposed through running to Manchester - from another thread:
Yes, I can't think of any way to add all the customs/border stuff in, and the only isolatable platform is 1 (unless you blocked access to the bridge from another island).
in theory the bridge across the far end of the platforms could be rebuilt to allow isolation Lille Europe Style that could allow a Secure terminal to the Northeast of the station but even that that would only allow 200m units
Not really. It could have been useful if an international terminus was somehow built out of the existing terminating platforms, with regional services being transferred to Mayfield. But the platforms just aren’t long enough to be used for international trains directly.
If Getlink charge by the passenger then it might actually end up being lower because they don't have to fill as many seats. Track access charges of HS1 might offset this potential benefit though. Seven coaches is the standard off-shelf configuration for New Pendolino trains with roughly 26m coaches, but I imagine being combined with the AGV into the Avelia platform it'll end up being longer. Probably eight 25m coaches to form a full 200m long train as is standard.
