Eurostar..What happened?

[ole man]

NLL isn't 4 track? It is Cannonbury - H&L but they are seperate lines.

NLL is 4 track from dalton west junction,although your correct they are seperate tracks,you can crossover just after Highbury and Islington station, where it becomes 3 track, although the x/over is used by OTP only.
It then becomes 4 track again until the NLL branches off to the ECML.
It then is 2 track until you reach Camden,where it splits.

 

[Oliver]

There seems to be quite a focus on passport/security issues in this thread.

This issue was discussed at length in the 'DB through the tunnel' or whatever it was called thread in international rail.
I recall a few folk saying that passports & security was to much trouble, would take up too much space & DB would never sort it out, etc. however latest news reports indicate that DB are cracking on with planning/building the necesary alterations at Koln HBF, presumably also Frankfurt & Amsterdam.

Given that DB think there is a market to go further afield south of the channel, suggests there is a market for longer overall route distances.

Yes, but the largest city (by far) which the DB services will serve is LONDON. Far more people want to visit London on business or holiday than wish to go to Frankfurt or Koln. It makes sense to run trains from Germany to London, but not Germany to Manchester, etc.

 

[paul1609]

How feasible would it be to run a couple of services each day in the early morning and late evening, to give people a straight point-to-point service?

During the day, I feel quite relaxed about changing trains. After a certain time in the evening (or in the early morning) I am rather a lot more apprehensive.

People in Kent may be able to pop over to Paris for a few hours for a meeting and return, but I am sure that many others would simply like a nice, easy, safe and relaxed way to get a full day (or full days) work/holiday and would already be seeking to travel early/late. At these times, the peak is over, or yet to fully take hold, so there may be more available paths.

I know the press/rival politicians would call it a pathetic token gesture - but I see it as anything but. Think of the Disneyland Paris trains as an example of how it already works.

Its not really feasible with the existing infrastructure 4 tph is the NLL off peak service, during the day its 6tph since last May and will rise to 10 tph under the orbitrail project.
Of course this is all rather different to when the NoL service was planned.

 

[ole man]

You also have to bear in mind the NLL is a very busy freight route

 

[Bald Rick]

... and that threading a eurostar across the NLL, through Stratford, and across the GEML on the flat would be nigh on impossible at any time of day.

 

[jon0844]

What a shame. I'd expect the service to be very well used. If not in the week for business travel, there would at least be the weekends for leisure - but I'm sure surveys would show demand all the time.

But, if the infrastructure can't take it then I guess it's not even viable to do that.

 

[HSTEd]

Out of interest, what sort of upgrades would you need to make it viable to do this?
If you demolished a bunch of houses you could put a chord in to connect with the Gospel Oak to Barking line which could then be electrified, but that doesnt get you entirely off the NLL and its not exactly empty itself is it?

 

[jon0844]

If HS2 can solve the problem, I can't see any money being invested to make my idea workable - to work, it needed to fit around the existing infrastructure and work purely because at 4-5am there was little traffic, likewise at 11pm-12am or whatever.

If there's freight going along at those times and only 4tph then it's doomed as the freight alone could cause major delays if things go wrong.

 

[Gareth]

So because Liverpool might have been missed out by Eurostar regional services it's a good thing that no one has them?

Pretty much. Just serving the 'in' cities that are blessed with Government Office HQs & regional TV news centres, as UKplc has an almost automatic habit of doing, puts Liverpool and other outcast cities at a disadvantage. If everyone else goes one step forward, even though you may well have remained in the same position, you have gone a step backwards, relative to everyone else.

I don't buy the 'Liverpool is the end of the line' thing. So what if it is? Lines have to end somewhere. As far as I can tell from maps of HS2, Birmingham will be on a spur whilst Manchester & Leeds will be 'end of the line'. Any extensions north will also not go via either of these cities; any tentative proposal about bringing HS2 to Scotland see the line break off before Manchester and going though Lancashire & Cumbria, making Manchester a spur like Birmingham.

And if infrastructure is a problem at the Liverpool end, upgrade the infrastructure. That's what they're doing in Manchester & Brimingham for HS2. All I want is a level playing field with other major cities. That's right, Liverpool is a major city. I know the rail network doesn't reflect this, neither does the BBC, nor most other typical UK state set-ups, but that's political and not actual. So please don't respond with something like "Well, why should somewhere like Liverpool be on HS2 anymore than a place like Ilkley?".

 

[sonorguy]

The Flying Scotsman does Edinburgh-London in only four hours, stopping only at Newcastle, which would be a major source of passengers and wont cost much time as you have to slow right down anyway.

If we route the trains over that ECML-NLL curve (does it run through Drayton Park station? - assuming that the rolling stock would not be out of guage) and then run non stop through to join HS1 in Dagenham over that freight connection, you would probably be looking at close to 6hr30 with check-in for Edinburgh-Paris, assuming that your rolling stock was capable of keeping Eurostar timings when it needs to.

At most I put Edinburgh to Parisb by air at 5hr15 minutes assuming the recommended security and transport timings suggested on the respective airports websites.
Newcastle-Paris might be viable at present but Edinburgh-Paris certainly isn't without some kind of super-APT upgrade project.

Ofcourse the train would source in Glasgow and only stop at Edinburgh and Newcastle and possibly York as they are the only places you could justify setting up a secure platform with the relevent X-ray machines etc that are required even if border checks are performed on the train. If you are not setting up in York you would probably have to build a high speed viaduct over the NRM to allow it to bypass the station at speed as the avoiders dont look set up for high speed running.

Oh and you would probably want another train that would run non stop from Leeds to Paris or if not, some sort of high speed shuttle service Leeds-York that is timed to get people there for booking onto teh southbound service.

Newcastle airport is small, very close to the city centre via Metro and relatively quick to get through, as are both Glasgow and Edinburgh. In terms of time and particularly cost, the train is nowhere near as attractive an option as flying is. As an idea from Newcastle the end to end time would be about 2/3rds of that on the train.

 

[HSTEd]

Newcastle airport is small, very close to the city centre via Metro and relatively quick to get through, as are both Glasgow and Edinburgh. In terms of time and particularly cost, the train is nowhere near as attractive an option as flying is. As an idea from Newcastle the end to end time would be about 2/3rds of that on the train.

Yes, hence I said "without super APT".

If we were to get ETR 610s or equivalent or perhaps even faster trains on the ECML flying would die swiftly......

I can dream.....

 

[island]

I think you mean Passport Control, which only occurs outbound, customs is only inbound and is hardly ever done at all

Customs exists at St. Pancras but is rarely manned. No idea about Ebbsfleet/Ashford. Immigration as mentioned is done before you board.

 

[JoeGJ1984]

Would it be feasible to do occasional railtours from, say, Manchester or Birmingham to Paris (perhaps for a day trip or a weekend break)?

Would any of the UK railtour companies be able to do something like this? (Perhaps during holiday periods).

 

[Yew]

Not Unles they used electric stock upto eurotunnel fireworthyness standards. I think mk4s are considered up to these standards as they would hav been used for nightstar. So if they used a 225 set, and then had it hauled by the eurotunnel locos (or replaced the dot with one?). Then they might, as they would be cleared as British loading guage is smaller than France. Would probably need a bilingual French Driver In the cab for route knowledge though

 

[ainsworth74]

I think mk4s are considered up to these standards as they would hav been used for nightstar.

I don't think they are, Nightstar stock was derived from Mk4s yes but the design was very different due to being modified for operations within the tunnel as far as I'm aware.

 

[HSTEd]

The Nightstars were engineered to the standards required by the chunnel at the time, but they were going on fifty tonnes each, but I do believe some of the restrictions have been eased now to permit DB to run trains using modified Velaro sets.

 

[MCR247]

We don't have any coaches suitable for use in the tunnel