Proposed new Channel Tunnel services discussion

[martin2345uk]

Be interesting to see how the tunnel deals with an increase in traffic, currently we fairly often get texts on the GSMR asking us to run at 140 and often 120kmh to avoid us catching up with a preceding shuttle train.

 

[Trainbike46]

But the high speed passenger trains run faster, upto 160km/h for the passenger trains (the book actually says designed to allow 180km/h but normally restricted to 160k/h for pathing).

Does this mean Eurostar trains that enter the tunnel slightly late but have a clear run ahead run at 180 km/h to recover time?

 

[Starmill]

Short-haul flights don't connect, they offer P2P journeys.

I can assume you that this isn't true. Have you seen KLM at Amsterdam Schipol? There are many examples of effectively connecting short haul flights.

 

[martin2345uk]

Does this mean Eurostar trains that enter the tunnel slightly late but have a clear run ahead run at 180 km/h to recover time?

No, we can't run at more than 160kmh. TVM doesn't have a 180 built in.

 

[NCT]

There is also the .16 path, at least at 06.16 and 08.16.

If operators wanted to run more trains than 4/5tph, extra paths could be sorted, and I'm sure getlink would be happy to, but as you say, 4/5tph is a very large capacity.

4tph x 900 pax/train x 14 hours/day could handle around 50,000 passengers per day per direction, around 18 million per year in a single direction.

If counting both departures and arrivals that is 100,000 per day or 36 million per year, more than Stansted and London City airports combined. So yeah, I agree that should be plenty for the likely market!

Based on existing timings, the theoretical peak St Pancras departure pattern looks something like this:

xx01 - Paris
xx04 - Brussels
xx07 - Ashford
xx16 - Maidstone (peak)
xx20 - Ashford (peak, skipping Ebbsfleet)
xx25 - Faversham

 

[TheWierdOne]

True, I don't think you would be able to force them to stop, but St Pancras has limited space available.
It suggests they aren't looking to expand that significantly.

The plans published by LSPH indicate they will increase international passenger capacity to 5000 pax/hour, which is enough to comfortably accommodate 5x400m trains.

What’s the mess in that? An airport has branded check in desks, generic security and waiting areas, branded gates. This would also work better for a third operator, or for people queuing for the half hour when they can queue for the desk.

They do indeed, but, the above notwithstanding, Eurostar already uses every entry gate so to have separate desks would be quite the challenge in terms of physical space. I think it’s quite possible the capacity plans will make heavy use of colocated facilities for different operators, as airports do. Unlike an airport St P is not flush with space to physically separate boarding between operators, so time-separated departures would be best to avoid someone ending up on the wrong operator. Most customers can recognise the colour of their train and connect 2 and 2, but the Chunnel sees heavy tourist traffic from non-English and non-French speaking groups and American traffic, meaning the potential confusion is a lot higher.

 

[Starmill]

No, we can't run at more than 160kmh. TVM doesn't have a 180 built in.

I suspect the tunnel regulations would have to be amended to allow any faster than 160 in any case. I'm not sure it has ever been done previously?

 

[NCT]

Is anyone asking for faster than 160 through the Channel Tunnel?

 

[Sorcerer]

I believe the limiting factor may be the requirement that only one train be in each running tunnel between any pair of intervention shafts.

Obviously additional shafts could be dug, but would represent a significant capital cost cost.

Intervention shafts? Are they the undersea crossovers by any chance?

I can see Virgin or Eurostar asking for subsidy to reopen it. Maybe it's something we should consider subsidising as a country to incentivise international travel by rail, instead of reliance on air or car travel (via ferry).
I also acknowledge HSR isn't supposed to have intermediate stations in its purest form, but HS1/the Chunnel serves more purposes than your typical HSR line.
It's our only link to the continent by rail, and the fastest and most efficient link for a big swathe of the country.
If we had through trains from other major cities to the continent via London (the former Regional Eurostar scheme), the case for reopening Ebbsfleet would be a lot better, but I think Regional Eurostar is unlikely to be resurrected any time soon.
Therefore driving/coach to Ebbsfleet and catching a cross-Channel service is going to be faster and cheaper for a large swathe of the UK population, who currently primarily travel by air to continental Europe (partly due to poor continental rail travel options).

They might ask for subsidy but I doubt the DfT will grant it. Ridership at both stations isn't significant enough for Eurostar to want to put forward any money so I doubt Virgin will want to do so either. I think if anything they would much rather chip in for a HS1-HS2 link for potential Birmingham/Manchester to Paris traffic since that would fit a lot better with a hub-based high-speed rail network. Neither seems likely in the grand scheme of things.

I understand TVM-430 allows trains nearer every 2 minutes 40 seconds.
So in theory can handle nearer 23 trains per hour.

So in reality nearer 18-20 trains is comfortable limit (rather than just 16) allowing some margin for late running.

The channel tunnel with its short 500m blocks, rather than 1500m on the 300-320km/h sections can also in theory take nearer 23-25 trains per hour, but only if they all ran at lower speed of the shuttles. So plenty of capacity over the current typical 7-10 trains per hour (including shuttles).

For clarity, tunnel capacity slightly varies per hour depending on mix of train lengths (400m high speed, 800m shuttles, variable freight train lengths), because it affects how they clear junctions each end as trains slowing for certain routes take longer to clear blocks near the portals. But realistically can still get closer to 18-20 an hour, over double what now runs.

So it seems I actually somewhat underestimated the capability. I figured maybe 18 trains per hour could be possible but wanted to be conservative and went with 16 which i can see being the most realistic maximum that you could get out of the route. That said I haven't considered available paths on the other side of the tunnel on the LGV Nord or HSL1.

 

[HSTEd]

Intervention shafts? Are they the undersea crossovers by any chance?

No, I mean on the underground HS1 section between St Pancras and the vicinity of Ebbsfleet.

The Chunnel itself has a bunch of engineering mitigations to avoid such a requirement.

 

[zwk500]

No, I mean on the underground HS1 section between St Pancras and the vicinity of Ebbsfleet.

That does not seem to be a factor, trains are regularly run 3 minutes apart out of and into St Pancras. Presumably as the railway was specified for a 3 minute headway, so were the vent shafts.

 

[Sorcerer]

No, I mean on the underground HS1 section between St Pancras and the vicinity of Ebbsfleet.

The Chunnel itself has a bunch of engineering mitigations to avoid such a requirement.

Oh, the London Tunnels, I see what you mean. I wasn't really aware of any such limitations.

 

[cle]

I can assume you that this isn't true. Have you seen KLM at Amsterdam Schipol? There are many examples of effectively connecting short haul flights.

Sorry i didn't phrase it clearly - I should have said "people don't tend to connect between short and short haul flights" - eg, going LHR-AMS-FCO or something. Which Americans do more, to stay in their frequent flier programs and because air travel is more like how we take trains in Europe.

I appreciate KLM/AMS is basically the non-London national airline and hub. And good for them. Fat better than LHR or CDG.

 

[AdamWW]

Sorry i didn't phrase it clearly - I should have said "people don't tend to connect between short and short haul flights" - eg, going LHR-AMS-FCO or something. Which Americans do more, to stay in their frequent flier programs and because air travel is more like how we take trains in Europe.

If flying from London then there's a fairly good chance of a direct flight to where you want to go.

From elsewhere in the UK not so much, and flying with KLM through Amsterdam can make a lot of sense. It has done for me anyway.

And the complexity of airline pricing means that sometimes it can also be cheaper to take two short haul flights and change than a direct flight even when direct flights are available.

I might be getting a bit off topic though.

 

[cle]

If flying from London then there's a fairly good chance of a direct flight to where you want to go.

From elsewhere in the UK not so much, and flying with KLM through Amsterdam can make a lot of sense. It has done for me anyway.

And the complexity of airline pricing means that sometimes it can also be cheaper to take two short haul flights and change than a direct flight even when direct flights are available.

I might be getting a bit off topic though.

I think it's fair topic - but because I think Eurostar is more akin to a point to point airline focused on high frequency, high demand routes. Like Virgin!

But more seriously, for Londoners - we rarely have to change planes (especially close to home - plenty will change in far flung hubs like Singapore or Miami to go to the smaller final places) - which is why I think the directs to Paris/Brussels/Amsterdam make the most sense for the main market. The regions are not the core business model of Eurostar either, they're a nice to have.

And yes they all have very quick direct flights to the same places - which make more sense than a Londoner flying eg. London-Brussels given the penalty of a train into St Pancras, etc.

 

[The Ham]

Travel beyond places directly served depends on what you want.

If you want a city break or a week in the beach flying to Barcelona is a clear win.

However, if you want to experience a range of different things doing a rail tour can make the travel part of the holiday.

As a family we're looking at the option of London to Paris, night in Paris, the next night sleeper to South West France, a few days to get to Barcelona (with short hops and 4 or 5 hours in some places to see some of the highlights there), overnight in Barcelona, a few days in the beach, a few days working back through France picking up a few different cities returning to London via Lille. All done by only taking 1 week of leave (could be 4 days if we did it in a week with a bank holiday, and could spend a bit more time if we linked it with Easter).

Whist you could do several weekends of city breaks to do the same thing (other than the beach stay would be shorter), you'd also be spending a lot of time in airports and getting to and from the airports.

We are unusual (some might say that I could stop there) as we can easily do weekend trips to Cornwall (due to having family there) and so the need for a sitting on the beach holiday doesn't require us to take days off work to get a decent number of days on the beach in a year (and we're not betting on having good weather, as if it's not great it's not as critical as it's likely to be good one of the next few times we go in the next few months).

 

[TheWierdOne]

Circling back to the (somewhat) confirmed operators of Trenitalia and Virgin, what are everyone’s thoughts on how the passenger base for Chunnel services will evolve? As a recap, Trenitalia are planning 10 round trips to Paris from 2029, and Virgin are planning 13 Paris services, 4 Brussels and 3 Amsterdam (I assume the Brussels and Amsterdam services are the same trains with one short start at Brussels). All together this represents a doubling of high-speed services through the Chunnel, do people think there is the potential passenger base to support this?

 

[The Ham]

Circling back to the (somewhat) confirmed operators of Trenitalia and Virgin, what are everyone’s thoughts on how the passenger base for Chunnel services will evolve? As a recap, Trenitalia are planning 10 round trips to Paris from 2029, and Virgin are planning 13 Paris services, 4 Brussels and 3 Amsterdam (I assume the Brussels and Amsterdam services are the same trains with one short start at Brussels). All together this represents a doubling of high-speed services through the Chunnel, do people think there is the potential passenger base to support this?

If we're taking about 23 extra services between London and Paris and if there's already 23, that's roughly 3tph between 6:30 and 22:00.

That's sightly less daily services than London Edinburgh, although the latter has a lower capacity per train Paris is 4 times the size and almost half as far away (on train travel time), and although international travel will add a level of restrictions compared to within UK travel, probably not enough to be a significant barrier.

As such it's not unreasonable to assume that there could be enough demand.

 

[Sorcerer]

I think that with increased services we could actually see a rise in potential passenger demand along the core routes, especially from London to Paris and London to Brussels. Despite high track access charges, fares could end up being broadly competitive enough to encourage more travel. As it stands there are some people who would use Eurostar if it was a bit cheaper. Rail demand has often a thing of "build it and they will come".

 

[AdamWW]

If we're taking about 23 extra services between London and Paris and if there's already 23, that's roughly 3tph between 6:30 and 22:00.

That's sightly less daily services than London Edinburgh, although the latter has a lower capacity per train Paris is 4 times the size and almost half as far away (on train travel time), and although international travel will add a level of restrictions compared to within UK travel, probably not enough to be a significant barrier.

As such it's not unreasonable to assume that there could be enough demand.

i imagine the "catchment area" of the termini is larger than for UK domestic journeys, e.g. you can just get the train straight to Glasgow rather than going to Edinburgh and changing.

 

[Mawkie]

Could some kind soul remind me of the current tunnel access charges for operators?

IIRC, they were priced on a per-seat basis? How are those charges regulated given the monopolistic nature of the service? Is there any proposal to lower those charges?

Thanks.

 

[Snow1964]

Circling back to the (somewhat) confirmed operators of Trenitalia and Virgin, what are everyone’s thoughts on how the passenger base for Chunnel services will evolve? As a recap, Trenitalia are planning 10 round trips to Paris from 2029, and Virgin are planning 13 Paris services, 4 Brussels and 3 Amsterdam (I assume the Brussels and Amsterdam services are the same trains with one short start at Brussels). All together this represents a doubling of high-speed services through the Chunnel, do people think there is the potential passenger base to support this?

Virgin is a bit standalone, in sense if want to continue beyond their core (either end) going to have to buy tickets for another Operator.

Trenitalia already has services Paris-Lyon-Marseille, and through to Milan (and onwards into Italy), plus some other International services at planning stage. If they offer good deals on through tickets, or market some journeys in same way as Icelandair or Qatar Air, with their stopover options at Reykjavik or Doha etc. then potentially could grow a new market segment that isn't currently rail.

So I suspect a lot will depend on how they market in catchment areas and destinations beyond the core service. Not everyone lives in capital cities so how they treat people travelling further will be big factor.

 

[Krokodil]

As such it's not unreasonable to assume that there could be enough demand.

There's definitely demand. The prices that Eurostar gets away with charging are indicative of that.

 

[zwk500]

Circling back to the (somewhat) confirmed operators of Trenitalia and Virgin, what are everyone’s thoughts on how the passenger base for Chunnel services will evolve? As a recap, Trenitalia are planning 10 round trips to Paris from 2029, and Virgin are planning 13 Paris services, 4 Brussels and 3 Amsterdam (I assume the Brussels and Amsterdam services are the same trains with one short start at Brussels). All together this represents a doubling of high-speed services through the Chunnel, do people think there is the potential passenger base to support this?

The air market for Paris and Amsterdam says theres definitely travel demand from the London area.

 

[Backroom_boy]

There's definitely demand. The prices that Eurostar gets away with charging are indicative of that.

Well, demand will be dependent on pricing.

Have to say though, StP will be very unpleasant at double the services unless some big changes are made

 

[cle]

LON-PAR still has about 27 flights per day. Many are French people connecting to BA, and people from here connecting to AF - but all the Easyjet ones and some of the BA/AF passengers are point to point. Yes Brighton people will fly from Gatwick vs Eurostar etc, there will be some for whom Eurostar isn't the right choice. But it's a lot.

Brussels is 4-6 flights per day, far less. But it also has the quickest Eurostar journey, so likely has a far bigger chunk of the total pie. And not much of a home airline.

Amsterdam can be up to 40 flights across the airports. Again some demand will stay, but 25-30 of those are LHR and LCY. So much scope for rail service, especially if it could be sped up a bit more. London-Brussels used to be timetabled at 1h50 or so. It's now always 2 hours. Appreciate there is a dwell here, but it could be tighter overall.

 

[zwk500]

Amsterdam can be up to 40 flights across the airports. Again some demand will stay, but 25-30 of those are LHR and LCY. So much scope for rail service, especially if it could be sped up a bit more. London-Brussels used to be timetabled at 1h50 or so. It's now always 2 hours.

In the pre-Covid timetable, 2019 here: https://parisbytrain.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/eurostar_timetable_2019.pdf, London - Brussels is 1h54 non-stop, or 2h01 with the Lille stop. Brussels - London non-stop didn't appear to run, and with the stop at Lille is 2h01-2h03.

Searching for tomorrow on Eurostar's website, I am offered journey times of 1h57 - 2h05. There's a few minutes to be gained but not much.

Appreciate there is a dwell here, but it could be tighter overall.

The RTT dwell listed for existing London-Amsterdam services is between 9 and 17 minutes, which is likely driven by pathing constraints on the Belgian Network.

Realtime Trains | Departures from Bruxelles Midi all day on 05/05/2026

Train information at Bruxelles Midi all day on 05/05/2026. From Realtime Trains, an independent source of train running info for Great Britain.

www.realtimetrains.co.uk

The dwell listed for Amsterdam - London services is between 13 and 22 minutes.

If all trains returned to the previous fastest timings you'd be saving between 3 and 9 minutes. In theory there's an appreciable time saving in the dwells, but only if the paths line up. Maybe, just maybe, with the increased frequency all Amsterdam trains could be standardised as non-stop between London and Brussels, so that the paths from HS1 and through Lille could be standardised as well (with the remaining Brussels terminators keeping the Lille stop). Then you could maximise the dwell and Journey time savings to bring the fasts London-Amsterdam times down to 3h55-3h59 or so on a consistent basis.

However, for the train to be seriously competitive against flying it will probably need to be below 3h30 (or to get rid of Eurostar's security & Border controls but fat chance of that in the current political climate). To save those 30 mins likely requires a high-speed line bypassing Brussels and Antwerp. And I cannot see a way you can convince Belgium to build a HSR to bypass their own 2 principal cities for the benefit of UK/FR-NL connections.

 

[BRX]

One of the ways I'd hope at least Trenitalia might compete with Eurostar & grow the market is by offering through ticketing beyond Paris. Not just a matter of pricing but also making it easy for people to book in one go.

 

[zwk500]

One of the ways I'd hope at least Trenitalia might compete with Eurostar & grow the market is by offering through ticketing beyond Paris. Not just a matter of pricing but also making it easy for people to book in one go.

Like Eurostar offer, to Bordeaux in this example?

[Screenshot of trial booking from Eurostar for a journey from London St Pancras to Bordeaux St Jean, presenting 1 up-front price]

 

[BRX]

Like Eurostar offer, to Bordeaux in this example?
View attachment 203618
[Screenshot of trial booking from Eurostar for a journey from London St Pancras to Bordeaux St Jean, presenting 1 up-front price]

Yes, but at a price that has some chance of competing with air fares. Whenever I travel to somewhere beyond Paris or Brussels I end up booking the legs separately because the through prices offered by Eurostar are pretty much always loads more expensive.

When I book the legs separately usually I manage to find a fairly good price. But of course this needs quite a bit of prior knowledge & perseverance, and the process is not attractive to most potential customers.