Isn't the train across the border (the Maple Leaf) stuck at the border for over an hour in some cases?
Its just not worth it.
Quicker to just disembark everyone in Euston, put them on a moving walkway to St Pancras and then put them through Eurostar security.
Through trains would ahve to have the trainset stopped in a valuable platform for some absurd amount of time.
Probably one train every ninety minutes at most.
And then there are the annoying safety requirements for running a trainset through the Chunnel which makes things like the e320 more expensive than regular Siemens trains of the same length would be.
Yes it does, I've experienced that and it was
two hours. But I've also heard of a similar procedure being undertaken at various places with far more passengers, including the Inter-German border, the Austria-Hungary border and the Italy-Yugoslavia border during the Cold War in far less time, down to as little as half an hour at times. I'm not sure if people had to de-train with luggage, though. Basically, it was a passport and identity check while the empty train drew forwards, then everybody back on.
My proposed location was and still is the under-used international platforms at Stratford. The train (originally intended to be a Regional Eurostar, probably something else now) would make an unadvertised halt there for up to half an hour, which would also give time to change crews, replenish the buffet and top up the tanks. Anyone not meant to be on an incoming train would be sent back to France on the next one, whilst anyone not meant to be on an outgoing train would be treated as 'travelling without a valid ticket' as if they were on a domestic service - exactly what it would have been north of Old Oak/Peterborough/Milton Keynes/Whatever. Farther south, all trains would run non-stop to Paris, where French immigration could run a second check if they like (based on the Regional Eurostar proposals, all services would run to Paris). With the British and French immigration services working together, plus a bit of political will, these problems are solvable.
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Some of these would be very useful, some less so (Chathill gets something like four passengers per service IIRC, which weakens the case for any significant spending to allow its current service to be retained).
However a lot of the things on this wishlist would cause months of disruption to existing passengers (which HS2 wouldn't).
That's the whole point of combining it with the existing relaying operations for most of the plain line sections. It makes the work more complicated (meaning it takes longer) but gives a better railway in the end. The biggest job is Doncaster, which needs doing even if most of the express traffic to London is lost, for the sake of Sheffield-Hull/Grimsby traffic. The second-biggest is Welwyn, where about half the work can be done alongside existing lines with minimal disruption provided they leave a big enough gap. Peterborough north involves working in a gap between two active railways.
