modernrail
Established Member
- Joined
- 26 Jul 2015
- Messages
- 1,462
Lots of exciting talk on night trains these days, particularly in Europe.
Looks like Brussels and potentially Amsterdam shaping up to be good hubs to head east. My thinking is Eurostar should run one late train to Brussels when those services start up, the business model of which is to stuff it full of passengers on reasonable through fares. Then hopefully you could be in Copenhagen, Berlin, Vienna etc by the next morning.
I suspect the French and Italians will sort out Paris to Italy and I am not sure there is logic in extending that route to London.
So what would the most viable and useful London route be?
I think maybe London to Barcelona.
Could you configure a Eurostar with about a third day coaches and 2/3 sleepers that serves as,
- last Eurostar to Paris, earning some revenue for that stretch and first Paris to London in the other direction.
- our connection to Paris for Italy sleepers if they emerge, filling up some more day coach seats
- our night train for the south of France, with passengers changing at Avignon to do the last stretch. You might get thrown off quite early but you are heading to the South of France and so maybe you wouldn’t mind too much.
- our night train to Barcelona, with connections to Madrid to be there for lunchtime and Malaga to be there for the afternoon.
- the French night train Paris to Barcelona
It feels to me like that would get good loadings London to Paris, London to Barcelona and Paris to Barcelona. There would probably be plenty of people who would suck up day coaches Paris to Barcelona. Big student movements between those two places for instance. This means you might overcome the sometimes difficult night train economics by cycling 2 sets of revenue out of your day coach seats.
On routings, could it go into Gare du Nord and then reverse out to use Paris avoiding lines to head south.
Also Eurostar is already cleared to the South of France. How tricky would it be to clear the last bit to Barcelona? Maybe fairly easy?
As for passport checks coming north, could it pull into Lille in the morning for an hour for a full passport check on the train with that being the first job of the day for UK Border Control at Lille. That also gets everybody up so you are ready to get off in London an hour and a bit later. You have the time difference to play with in that direction and so no harm done on overall timings.
I do wonder if some of the old Eurostar’s could have been re- configured into this format but I assume they have all been throw away now, which still seems crazy to me but there you go.
in any case ordering additional carriages of the new type means you get a bigger loading gauge and so nicer cabins.
You could maybe even have Cabins that really easily become day seat compartments to maximise flexibility to get revenue out of the London to Paris bit, with some speedy conversion at Gare Du Nord.
One of the big advantages of this plan on this route would be that you can run a single Eurostar without splitting it up for coaches to reach different destinations. That would mean it could effectively be run as a standard Eurostar service using all the existing infrastructure and operational style. The only real addition would be staff to turn the hotel bit in the cabins.
Looks like Brussels and potentially Amsterdam shaping up to be good hubs to head east. My thinking is Eurostar should run one late train to Brussels when those services start up, the business model of which is to stuff it full of passengers on reasonable through fares. Then hopefully you could be in Copenhagen, Berlin, Vienna etc by the next morning.
I suspect the French and Italians will sort out Paris to Italy and I am not sure there is logic in extending that route to London.
So what would the most viable and useful London route be?
I think maybe London to Barcelona.
Could you configure a Eurostar with about a third day coaches and 2/3 sleepers that serves as,
- last Eurostar to Paris, earning some revenue for that stretch and first Paris to London in the other direction.
- our connection to Paris for Italy sleepers if they emerge, filling up some more day coach seats
- our night train for the south of France, with passengers changing at Avignon to do the last stretch. You might get thrown off quite early but you are heading to the South of France and so maybe you wouldn’t mind too much.
- our night train to Barcelona, with connections to Madrid to be there for lunchtime and Malaga to be there for the afternoon.
- the French night train Paris to Barcelona
It feels to me like that would get good loadings London to Paris, London to Barcelona and Paris to Barcelona. There would probably be plenty of people who would suck up day coaches Paris to Barcelona. Big student movements between those two places for instance. This means you might overcome the sometimes difficult night train economics by cycling 2 sets of revenue out of your day coach seats.
On routings, could it go into Gare du Nord and then reverse out to use Paris avoiding lines to head south.
Also Eurostar is already cleared to the South of France. How tricky would it be to clear the last bit to Barcelona? Maybe fairly easy?
As for passport checks coming north, could it pull into Lille in the morning for an hour for a full passport check on the train with that being the first job of the day for UK Border Control at Lille. That also gets everybody up so you are ready to get off in London an hour and a bit later. You have the time difference to play with in that direction and so no harm done on overall timings.
I do wonder if some of the old Eurostar’s could have been re- configured into this format but I assume they have all been throw away now, which still seems crazy to me but there you go.
in any case ordering additional carriages of the new type means you get a bigger loading gauge and so nicer cabins.
You could maybe even have Cabins that really easily become day seat compartments to maximise flexibility to get revenue out of the London to Paris bit, with some speedy conversion at Gare Du Nord.
One of the big advantages of this plan on this route would be that you can run a single Eurostar without splitting it up for coaches to reach different destinations. That would mean it could effectively be run as a standard Eurostar service using all the existing infrastructure and operational style. The only real addition would be staff to turn the hotel bit in the cabins.
