Eurostar orders new double-deck train fleet

[43102EMR]

A bit surprised that no mention of Basel and/or Zurich, which cannot be in the interest of SBB, with whom they allegedly are working together. Of course, from a London perspective, Geneva is the easier destination.

Was about to say, Geneva is much easier to serve travel time wise from London. Can imagine if Basel and Zurich are on the cards, it will be after Eurostar test the water so to speak with the Geneva service.

 

[nw1]

The Chief Executive of Eurostar is interviewed in the Sunday Times today. She says the new trains will be called Celestria. She also says there will be 4 running daily to Frankfurt and 3 to Geneva, the latter taking 5h20. There will be a double decker bar on board which she says will be as nice as the cocktail bar in the St Pancras Premier lounge.

5hr20 to basically the Alps is impressive indeed!

 

[Bald Rick]

A bit surprised that no mention of Basel and/or Zurich, which cannot be in the interest of SBB, with whom they allegedly are working together. Of course, from a London perspective, Geneva is the easier destination.

One does not often blow one’s trompette, but I’ve been saying for a decade on threads here that Geneva and Frankfurt are the most likely destinations. Basle doesn’t have enough market for a 400 seat train let alone 900, and in Zurich’s case, it’s too far for the market there is.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: Monday at 21:10 ==

5hr20 to basically the Alps is impressive indeed!

It will certainly be attractive for some ski traffic. Eurostar will be able to charge whatever they want on the Feb half term Saturdays. 5 months out, and returns for that week for Sat morning flights out and back a week later with BA for anything other than the first flights are already north of £1k return. If Eurostar did a, say, 0630 departure off St P, arriving Geneva 1300 local, that is perfect for transfers to various resorts for a late afternoon arrival, then the return departs 1430, (perfect for checkout mid morning) arrive London 1900. They’ll easily sell the train out at £200 one way in Standard on Winter Saturdays, or £400 for half term Saturdays. Add in the premia for higher classes and it will be half a million quid revenue for one return trip, and £1m at half term.

 

[Sorcerer]

A bit surprised that no mention of Basel and/or Zurich, which cannot be in the interest of SBB, with whom they allegedly are working together. Of course, from a London perspective, Geneva is the easier destination.

I would imagine that any Basel/Zurich services can run on existing TGV Lyria paths so as not to introduce new pathing complexities and the need to squeeze it into the Taktfahrplan. That would however come with disadvantages for the existing Paris Gare de Lyon service, and of course you also then have the question as to what happens if a Zurich-bound Eurostar is running late before Basel. SBB don't like late-running trains on their network but unlike with Deutsche Bahn and Trenitalia it might not be as easy to run a last minute replacement train.

 

[NCT]

The Chief Executive of Eurostar is interviewed in the Sunday Times today. She says the new trains will be called Celestria. She also says there will be 4 running daily to Frankfurt and 3 to Geneva, the latter taking 5h20. There will be a double decker bar on board which she says will be as nice as the cocktail bar in the St Pancras Premier lounge.

This does feel more precise than just an initial idea ... have they found / are they close to finding border/customs/security solutions for Frankfurt (and Cologne)?

 

[Krokodil]

5hr20 to basically the Alps is impressive indeed!

Presumably an hour longer on the way back if a Lille shuffle is required (pending border facilities in Geneva).

 

[Fragezeichnen]

This does feel more precise than just an initial idea ... have they found / are they close to finding border/customs/security solutions for Frankfurt (and Cologne)?

Frankfurt doesn't have to mean Cologne, and I'd be shocked if it did.

London - (near)Paris - Strasbourg - Frankfurt would be faster than London - Brussels - Cologne - Frankfurt, and given that Eurostar has a strong relationship with and will operate the same underlying train as SNCF probably a lot easier for them to follow existing TGV routes. Just make a stop at Charles de Gaulle to swap to an SNCF crew that and they wouldn't even have train their own staff.
(to be fair DB has also pledged cooperation with Eurostar)

 

[nw1]

Presumably an hour longer on the way back if a Lille shuffle is required (pending border facilities in Geneva).

How did they deal with borders and passport control in continental Europe pre-Schengen, incidentally? Could the same approach be done with Eurostar? If Eurostar does expand, I can't see the current setup being attractive to travellers.

 

[Austriantrain]

One does not often blow one’s trompette, but I’ve been saying for a decade on threads here that Geneva and Frankfurt are the most likely destinations.

Indeed, you are almost always right on these issues - probably much to do with the fact that you know exactly how the people who plan this stuff think and probably speak to them on a regular basis.

Basle doesn’t have enough market for a 400 seat train let alone 900, and in Zurich’s case, it’s too far for the market there is.
[

That seems a very UK- and London-centric view. London is by far Zurich airport‘s largest destination, and since Zurich Airport is the one for the East of Switzerland, Basel would perfectly serve a a railhead for exactly the same region. For a typical Swiss, it makes zero difference whether they take a train to Zurich airport, or to Basel SBB. Obviously, you would need to go for the Swiss customers rather than fill the train with Londoners, which seems to be E* plan.

BTW, do really that many people travel from London to Frankfurt? Because I doubt the German side is going to fill these trains if they don’t serve Cologne - and thus the whole Rhein-Ruhr region - too. I don’t really know, but apart from Bankers, Frankfurt strikes me as one of the least attractive destinations in Germany, and the attractive places that way are quite a bit away from it.

 

[TheWierdOne]

Indeed, you are mostly right on these issues - probably much to do with the fact that you know exactly how the people who plan this stuff think and probably speak to them on a regular basis.



That seems a very UK- and London-centric view. London is by far Zurich airport‘s largest destination, and since Zurich Airport is the one for the East of Switzerland, Basel would perfectly serve a a railhead for exactly the same region. For a typical Swiss, it makes zero difference whether they take a train to Zurich airport, or to Basel SBB. Obviously, you would need to go for the Swiss customers rather than fill the train with Londoners, which seems to be E* plan.

BTW, do really that many people travel from London to Frankfurt? Because I doubt the German side is going to fill these trains if they don’t serve Cologne - and thus the whole Rhein-Ruhr region - too. I don’t really know, but apart from Bankers, Frankfurt strikes me as one of the least attractive destinations in Germany, and the attractive places that way are quite a bit away from it.

Heathrow alone has 10 departures to Frankfurt today, with a roughly hourly service in the afternoon.

 

[BahrainLad]

Heathrow alone has 10 departures to Frankfurt today, with a roughly hourly service in the afternoon.

How many of those are Lufthansa feeding their hub though, and how many passengers on board are just transferring through FRA to somewhere else?

Unpicking the O&D traffic from a hub to hub route like LHR-FRA is always going to be a challenge.

 

[Austriantrain]

Heathrow alone has 10 departures to Frankfurt today, with a roughly hourly service in the afternoon.

Apart from the connecting traffic, which was already pointed out, a E* 320 set has a *tad* more capacity than an A320 or A321. 4 trains a day is a *lot* of seats, even acknowledging that a portion will leave the train in Brussels.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: Tuesday at 08:43 ==

Was about to say, Geneva is much easier to serve travel time wise from London.

Basel is actually (slightly) faster than Geneva.

 

[Krokodil]

How did they deal with borders and passport control in continental Europe pre-Schengen, incidentally? Could the same approach be done with Eurostar? If Eurostar does expand, I can't see the current setup being attractive to travellers.

On the Croatian-Slovenian and Hungarian-Romanian borders we remained in our sleeper compartments at the first/last stops in each country. Door opens, passports are stamped, door closes.

Outside of the EU (which we are now) you were often sent into the station, presumably to give customs the opportunity to search the train. So the Lille shuffle.

 

[Goldfish62]

(My initial thought when reading that is that passengers might expect it but with the current trains I'm not sure they'll get it - a 374 in "second" class doesn't feel particularly premium to me.)

Well indeed. Standard class on a Class 374 is not a patch on 2nd Class in the ICE3neo (its closest peer) or any ICE for that matter.

 

[Bald Rick]

Indeed, you are almost always right on these issues - probably much to do with the fact that you know exactly how the people who plan this stuff think and probably speak to them on a regular basis.

Half right!

For a typical Swiss, it makes zero difference whether they take a train to Zurich airport, or to Basel SBB.

It surely does if you live in Zurich.

The difference in air demand for London to Basle / Zurich is 1:3, which tells you something about where the demand is both ends. Basle is served only by UK airlines, whereas Zurich is majority served by Swiss Air, which must mean somethign (although I can’t think what!)

I doubt the German side is going to fill these trains if they don’t serve Cologne

I agree. I always assumed the Frankfurt trains would be via Brussels & Köln. Plenty of traffic on offer there.

 

[NCT]

Frankfurt doesn't have to mean Cologne, and I'd be shocked if it did.

London - (near)Paris - Strasbourg - Frankfurt would be faster than London - Brussels - Cologne - Frankfurt, and given that Eurostar has a strong relationship with and will operate the same underlying train as SNCF probably a lot easier for them to follow existing TGV routes. Just make a stop at Charles de Gaulle to swap to an SNCF crew that and they wouldn't even have train their own staff.
(to be fair DB has also pledged cooperation with Eurostar)

London - Paris is 2h25m; Paris - Frankfurt is 3h55m. Suppose you save 20 minutes on each leg not going into Paris, that makes 5h40m London - Frankfurt. That train relies almost entirely on London - Frankfurt demand (CDG as a bonus).

London - Frankfurt on standard timings (xx04 from St Pancras, xx25 from Brussels) is 5h25m. This train would have Brussels, Cologne and Frankfurt each occupying a third of the train's capacity (assuming a holding pen solution is found for Cologne - which I admit I'm highly sceptical).

 

[williamn]

Yes from what I read finding a place for a secure platform at Cologne is close to impossible.

 

[MogtheDog]

As I recall, John Worth's report on possible routes identified two stations suitable for Eurostar to pick up passengers from Cologne, of which the airport station was the most likely

 

[Sorcerer]

Doesn't Cologne have an issue where not only does it not have the border force facilities but also isn't optimally laid out for international traffic? I seem to recall something like that being covered on a Green Signals podcast.

 

[NCT]

It's a tight station (The Hbf). There are only 9 mainline platforms which handle an awful lot of trains, and those platforms aren't exactly wide either. I don't think the timetable can afford to have one platform kept sterile for any period of time.

Anything that's not the Hbf would reduce rail's attractiveness. I don't think Messe/Deutz works either. If you have to go to Flughafen you might as well fly.

 

[Goldfish62]

Doesn't Cologne have an issue where not only does it not have the border force facilities but also isn't optimally laid out for international traffic? I seem to recall something like that being covered on a Green Signals podcast.

Yes. And there's insufficient capacity to close off P1 from domestic traffic for any length of time, plus is on the wrong side of the station. It would be nigh-on impossible finding paths to and from the lines towards Aachen / Belgium when the station can't even cope with the existing level of services.

 

[mad_rich]

I think there was a suggestion - not sure if it was from Jon Worth or someone else - that Hbf could be used for arrivals, and Flughafen for departures. Although I don't know how popular that would be.

 

[NCT]

Yes. And there's insufficient capacity to close off P1 from domestic traffic for any length of time, plus is on the wrong side of the station. It would be nigh-on impossible finding paths to and from the lines towards Aachen / Belgium when the station can't even cope with the existing level of services.

Of course, it wouldn't work if 'sterile' Eurostar just replaced existing Brussels - Cologne - Frankfurt paths (xx25 from Brussels Midi) as that would deprive intra-Schengen passengers the ability to travel. I suspect you'd need a flighted path leaving Brussels at xx19 (the xx22 is already occupied by the Amsterdam services) - doubt the timetabling would work.

I can't see anything other than a Brussels shuffle being practical.

 

[Goldfish62]

I think there was a suggestion - not sure if it was from Jon Worth or someone else - that Hbf could be used for arrivals, and Flughafen for departures. Although I don't know how popular that would be.

Yes, Jon Worth. He's a bit of a guru on such matters.

As for how popular it would be I would suggest it would likely be more popular than the other two obvious options, ie, serving Flughafen in both directions, or simply not serving Cologne.

 

[Austriantrain]

It surely does if you live in Zurich.

I don't believe so. A very significant proportion of people living in Zurich will hop on a train to go to Zurich Airport too. I think you underestimate how taking a train to go somewhere - anywhere - is engrained in Swiss psychology like nowhere else. Zurich people will also happily go to Basel to take another train there to reach places in France or Germany, when no direct train exists or the timings are not ideal. Coupled to the fact - as I recently read - that destinations with attractive rail connections from Zurich lead to lower air passenger numbers because affinity to rail travel is so high, the Swiss have very significant purchasing power and LCCs are less of a thing in Zurich than elsewhere, I really have no doubt that Basel would work as well as Geneva. It might just be a bit more work (since you could not just assume that Londoners by themselves would fill the train and market it more widely), which E* - as lazy as their majority shareholder SNCF - would not be prepared to do.

Swiss (including Zurich) people might hesitate to change trains somewhere in France, but going to Basel and changing there is basically like taking the tram to go to the supermarket.

 

[MogtheDog]

I presume it would be the airport in both directions, plus an Antwerp-style setdown at the main station for services from London

 

[Snow1964]

Yes. And there's insufficient capacity to close off P1 from domestic traffic for any length of time, plus is on the wrong side of the station. It would be nigh-on impossible finding paths to and from the lines towards Aachen / Belgium when the station can't even cope with the existing level of services.

I think there was a suggestion - not sure if it was from Jon Worth or someone else - that Hbf could be used for arrivals, and Flughafen for departures. Although I don't know how popular that would be.

I think a possible solution might be the recently reintroduced DB German trains to Brussels airport. The massively expanded Liege station might be an alternative to Cologne for pick ups.

It might be a case that 2 start points are more practical, somewhere beyond Cologne, and one in Belgium. No one is going to want extra terminating trains at crowded Koln Hbf

 

[Trainbike46]

I think a possible solution might be the recently reintroduced DB German trains to Brussels airport. The massively expanded Liege station might be an alternative to Cologne for pick ups.

It might be a case that 2 start points are more practical, somewhere beyond Cologne, and one in Belgium. No one is going to want extra terminating trains at crowded Koln Hbf

Koln would be an intermediate stop on services to from Frankfurt, and therefore wouldn't involve terminating trains in any situation

 

[Goldfish62]

Below is the link to Jon Worth's work and report on the feasibility of additional destinations being served by cross-channel services. It's very readable.

#CrossChannelRail final report released, and the next steps

After three weeks of research on the ground in spring 2025, dozens of follow conversations, and plenty of desk research, today I finally published the conclusions report from my #CrossChannelRail project - you can download the PDF of the report here. The stations map is also available in a...

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His conclusions for the most feasible destinations:

West Germany (Köln and Frankfurt) and Switzerland (Basel and Zurich)

 

[swt_passenger]

It’s quite enlightening that in one of the points quoted in post #238 they reckon going to double deck stock gives only a 20% capacity increase, and that’s in one of the larger UIC gauges. It should possibly be noted by people suggesting double deck trains for the GB network, that a similar increase in capacity would be achieved by sticking a couple of extra coaches on the train…