Eurostar pushing truth?

[LNW-GW Joint]

90 mins isn't even that large a gap really; does demand really warrant a 1331 departure for Paris for instance?

It would suit me coming from the frozen north. The morning peak trains from St P are no use to folk who live well away from London.
Such a departure also probably means the train can work a peak train back later in the day.

 

[paul1609]

Well I took that as read if there wasn't scope for 2 full departures in an hour there wouldn't be scope for more! Also, edit noted!

It does raise the question of whether you could get the business at Ebbsfleet or Ashford to fill the trains in the peak. 1tp2h to each destination is probably fine for the off-peak, trains are busy but you can usually still book quite late before departure. It would only be 1 station max either way, but you'd need to take about 500 passengers across that period to take the pressure off St Pancras. It's borderline but not impossible. The big question is whether you can staff the intermediate station (almost certainly Ebbsfleet) efficiently enough to avoid taking a loss on the operation.
The fact Eurostar aren't looking at it suggests they don't think they can.

I think Eurostar are right. Ebbsfleet has always from day 1 been a disaster. A car park 6 miles from the M25 with no easy connections to anywhere has never attracted any inwards passengers and with the unreliability of journey time especially through the Dartford Crossing and around the south west quadrant of the M25 didn't attract many outgoing passengers either. Most of the facilities were closed and the car park remain unused. I only ever used it once to alight from a Brussels service that didn't call at Ashford and of the around 50 passengers alighting I think that 35 of them got back on HS1 to Ashford.
Ashford had longer to build up its passenger base and did attract some incoming passengers as Canterbury is a major attraction and many people stay outside London to avoid the high accommodation charges. 35 mins to St Pancras for these on domestic hs1 is attractive. Outwards Ashford seemed to attract outward travellers from the local area particularly to Paris and also people who travelled down the evening before parked up and then stayed the night in one of the hotels within walking distance of the station. This was particularly so for the Disney train. However that business has just been allowed to slip away and won't easily/ be i ever regained.
Eurotunnels le shuttle has lapped up the former Kent Eurostar business with glee Im afraid.

 

[RT4038]

Eurotunnels le shuttle has lapped up the former Kent Eurostar business with glee Im afraid.

Which can't have been much, as only a few passengers used the even fewer trains that stopped there.