Proposed new Channel Tunnel services discussion

[fandroid]

There are plenty of ways that border controls could be enforced to allow much more flexibility of stops rather than the myopic one size fits all system that past UK governments have imposed.

 

[HSTEd]

There are plenty of ways that border controls could be enforced to allow much more flexibility of stops rather than the myopic one size fits all system that past UK governments have imposed.

Well the fundamental problem is that if it is possible to buy a ticket from a continental city into the UK and travel without getting checked by a border guard, that route will rapidly flooded with people attempting to enter the UK irregularly.

There are many thousands of people in northern France waiting to cross into the UK, and many more would come if the dangerous and unreliable crossing was replaced with a seat on a train.
And even if you catch them at the London end, they would simply claim asylum to the person who apprehended them and they will have achieved their primary objective.

If everyone must be checked before they reach UK soil, I can't see many models other than the current one.

 

[TheWierdOne]

Well the fundamental problem is that if it is possible to buy a ticket from a continental city into the UK and travel without getting checked by a border guard, that route will rapidly flooded with people attempting to enter the UK irregularly.

There are many thousands of people in northern France waiting to cross into the UK, and many more would come if the dangerous and unreliable crossing was replaced with a seat on a train.
And even if you catch them at the London end, they would simply claim asylum to the person who apprehended them and they will have achieved their primary objective.

If everyone must be checked before they reach UK soil, I can't see many models other than the current one.

One way I could see allowing intra-Schengen journeys would be to run two 200m units attached to each other without a corridor connection. Eurostar units are so long anyway that the staffing costs would be similar. One unit could be limited to UK-bound passengers who have been checked, the other for intra-Schengen. At the last Schengen stop (Lille or Brussels most likely), the intra-Schengen unit could be emptied, swept, and filled with UK-bound passengers.

 

[Brubulus]

Well the fundamental problem is that if it is possible to buy a ticket from a continental city into the UK and travel without getting checked by a border guard, that route will rapidly flooded with people attempting to enter the UK irregularly.

There are many thousands of people in northern France waiting to cross into the UK, and many more would come if the dangerous and unreliable crossing was replaced with a seat on a train.
And even if you catch them at the London end, they would simply claim asylum to the person who apprehended them and they will have achieved their primary objective.

If everyone must be checked before they reach UK soil, I can't see many models other than the current one.

Therefore ceding a relevant part of UK soil (St Pancras station) to France is the easiest solution. People will only be in the UK once they have cleared UK immigration on French territory at St Pancras station. This government is prepared to cede UK territory if they believe it furthers their objectives, therefore a largely technical session at St Pancras station enables a much more reasonable system in which trains are intra-schenegen services that simply run to a station at which the only exit is a UK border control station. This means both Schengen exit and UK entry can take place at St Pancras.

 

[Chester1]

There are plenty of ways that border controls could be enforced to allow much more flexibility of stops rather than the myopic one size fits all system that past UK governments have imposed.

Its not just our government's "myopic one size fits all system" , Eurostar controls are based on a treaty with France and there is no interest from the French in changing it either. It works relatively well for both sides.

Look at it from the French perspective. Any British (or UK based) criminal would have easy access to France and any irregular migrant who finds out the roads of the UK are not paved in gold could easily cross back to France. Why would they want that to save a few minutes after a flight and add a handful of minor routes to Eurostar? Schengen isn't really about pan European identity, its about maximising economic benefits of no borders when the old borders were futile for security. That doesn't apply to a sea border.

 

[Sorcerer]

I've seen recent mention of Frankfurt and Cologne as a possible future destination, and out of them two I think Frankfurt makes slightly more sense given it's status as a global hub for commerce, culture and tourism similar to London, though perhaps ideally we could get both with the Frankfurt services serving Cologne as an intermediate stop for passengers.

 

[Harry Douthwaite]

Well the fundamental problem is that if it is possible to buy a ticket from a continental city into the UK and travel without getting checked by a border guard, that route will rapidly flooded with people attempting to enter the UK irregularly.

There are many thousands of people in northern France waiting to cross into the UK, and many more would come if the dangerous and unreliable crossing was replaced with a seat on a train.
And even if you catch them at the London end, they would simply claim asylum to the person who apprehended them and they will have achieved their primary objective.

If everyone must be checked before they reach UK soil, I can't see many models other than the current one.

Calais is a particularly underutilized station for Eurostar, and it already has a 'layby' style layout that would allow passengers from the Schengen zone (Frankfurt/Cologne/Amsterdam/Brussels etc) to de-train. Passengers headed to the UK could complete border-entry there and reboard the train afterwards, while not interrupting other Eurostar services that would go past on the thru lines.

 

[Brubulus]

Its not just our government's "myopic one size fits all system" , Eurostar controls are based on a treaty with France and there is no interest from the French in changing it either. It works relatively well for both sides.

Look at it from the French perspective. Any British (or UK based) criminal would have easy access to France and any irregular migrant who finds out the roads of the UK are not paved in gold could easily cross back to France. Why would they want that to save a few minutes after a flight and add a handful of minor routes to Eurostar? Schengen isn't really about pan European identity, its about maximising economic benefits of no borders when the old borders were futile for security. That doesn't apply to a sea border.

I agree with what you're saying in theory, but both the UK and France have a mutual interest in making international services better, and centralising border control in St Pancras achieved that without causing issues for the UK or France, were an appropriate agreement made that would mean that UK border control stations were on French territory for the purpose of asylum.

 

[Sad Sprinter]

What xenophobic claptrap

He may have a point…

 

[Trainbike46]

Calais is a particularly underutilized station for Eurostar, and it already has a 'layby' style layout that would allow passengers from the Schengen zone (Frankfurt/Cologne/Amsterdam/Brussels etc) to de-train. Passengers headed to the UK could complete border-entry there and reboard the train afterwards, while not interrupting other Eurostar services that would go past on the thru lines.

So, what you're proposing is reintroducing the Lille shuffle, but at Calais instead? Why Calais instead of Lille?

In particular, why would you do this on origins like Amsterdam or Brussel, that can fill the train sufficiently by themselves?

I've seen recent mention of Frankfurt and Cologne as a possible future destination, and out of them two I think Frankfurt makes slightly more sense given it's status as a global hub for commerce, culture and tourism similar to London, though perhaps ideally we could get both with the Frankfurt services serving Cologne as an intermediate stop for passengers.

It likely would be both, just like how the Amsterdam service also serves Rotterdam.

 

[NCT]

Because nearly all the isolation already exists and always will do because there is a sea between us and Schengen. There is one physical transport link between the UK and Schengen. There are thousands between Schengen countries, ranging from single track roads to motorways. The additional isolation from border controls is very marginal for an island but brings security and policing benefits. Its only a significant limitation to channel tunnel trains and they are a small fraction of UK - Schengen journeys. I would support us being part of Schengen for visitor visas, its data base and EES/ETIAS but only if we retained border controls. That would stream line them while still having a filter of who comes in and out. An associate membership would work well for UK and Ireland, would probably be better for Iceland and Malta than the status quo and allow Cyprus to be closer to Schengen membership despite part of the country being occupied by Turkey.

You've decided to answer the question you want to answer rather than answer the question that's asked.

So the answer is the UK doesn't need to be more isolated, or that if the island nature affords it a baseline level of relative isolation then the UK can afford to be just that slightly less isolated.

Channel tunnel trains carries a small fraction of UK - Schengen journeys because it's not being used to its full potential. It's the link that that links the most productive parts of the UK and continental Europe so every passenger benefiting from it carries a high value of time so is disproportionately economically valuable. It's the one corridor that supports the concentration of flows that can enable a significant difference in mode shift from air and therefore decarbonisation.

Nobody was forced to join Schengen. Iceland and Malta willingly chose packages that were the most economically advantageous, unlike the UK.

Why is free movement between France and UK any more threatening than between Luton and Dunstable? It's Little England paranoid xenophobia.

Well the fundamental problem is that if it is possible to buy a ticket from a continental city into the UK and travel without getting checked by a border guard, that route will rapidly flooded with people attempting to enter the UK irregularly.

There are many thousands of people in northern France waiting to cross into the UK, and many more would come if the dangerous and unreliable crossing was replaced with a seat on a train.
And even if you catch them at the London end, they would simply claim asylum to the person who apprehended them and they will have achieved their primary objective.

If everyone must be checked before they reach UK soil, I can't see many models other than the current one.

If the last government maintained a safe route for asylum and resourced asylum processing properly and returned those without a case then we wouldn't have been such a magnet for illegal crossings.

 

[Harry Douthwaite]

So, what you're proposing is reintroducing the Lille shuffle, but at Calais instead? Why Calais instead of Lille?

In particular, why would you do this on origins like Amsterdam or Brussel, that can fill the train sufficiently by themselves?


It likely would be both, just like how the Amsterdam service also serves Rotterdam.

Because Lille Europe only has two secure platforms that are heavily used and cannot accommodate a train on a 30-45 minute layover for border checks without interrupting existing Brussels/Paris - London services.
Calais only sees four trains per day or so, which could accommodate this with either none or minimal changes from as it is now.

 

[zwk500]

Because Lille Europe only has two secure platforms that are heavily used and cannot accommodate a train on a 30-45 minute layover for border checks without interrupting existing Brussels/Paris - London services.
Calais only sees four trains per day or so, which could accommodate this with either none or minimal changes from as it is now.

Passengers from beyond Brussels would do the shuffle in Belgium. Calais doesn't have the passenger capacity to process a shuffle.

 

[Chester1]

You've decided to answer the question you want to answer rather than answer the question that's asked.

So the answer is the UK doesn't need to be more isolated, or that if the island nature affords it a baseline level of relative isolation then the UK can afford to be just that slightly less isolated.

Channel tunnel trains carries a small fraction of UK - Schengen journeys because it's not being used to its full potential. It's the link that that links the most productive parts of the UK and continental Europe so every passenger benefiting from it carries a high value of time so is disproportionately economically valuable. It's the one corridor that supports the concentration of flows that can enable a significant difference in mode shift from air and therefore decarbonisation.

Nobody was forced to join Schengen. Iceland and Malta willingly chose packages that were the most economically advantageous, unlike the UK.

Why is free movement between France and UK any more threatening than between Luton and Dunstable? It's Little England paranoid xenophobia.



If the last government maintained a safe route for asylum and resourced asylum processing properly and returned those without a case then we wouldn't have been such a magnet for illegal crossings.

I have answered the question, joining Schengen would be trading a tiny amount less isolation for no control over who enters and leaves the UK. The difference between Luton and Dunstable and UK and France they are the same jurisdiction, same economy, same pool of criminals and have virtually unlimited travel options. There is one physical connection between the UK and France and opening it up completely would allow malign actors in both countries to freely mix for almost zero economic benefit.

Do you think its paranoid xenophobia for Canada to want border checks on its land border with the US? There is a much better business case for scrapping them than UK-Schengen. What about on flights between New Zealand and Australia?

We are not in main land Europe however much some people would love us to be and its the reason we never joined Schengen. We had freedom of movement for 49 years while having border checks. Most people were happy with that.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 18 Jul 2025 ==

Passengers from beyond Brussels would do the shuffle in Belgium. Calais doesn't have the passenger capacity to process a shuffle.

The shuffle ruins the passenger numbers for everything but occasional seasonal services and even then its damaging. The solution of Germany and Switzerland services is copying the existing setup or not bothering.

 

[NCT]

I have answered the question, joining Schengen would be trading a tiny amount less isolation for no control over who enters and leaves the UK. The difference between Luton and Dunstable and UK and France they are the same jurisdiction, same economy, same pool of criminals and have virtually unlimited travel options. There is one physical connection between the UK and France and opening it up completely would allow malign actors in both countries to freely mix for almost zero economic benefit.

Do you think its paranoid xenophobia for Canada to want border checks on its land border with the US? There is a much better business case for scrapping them than UK-Schengen. What about on flights between New Zealand and Australia?

We are not in main land Europe however much some people would love us to be and its the reason we never joined Schengen. We had freedom of movement for 49 years while having border checks. Most people were happy with that.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 18 Jul 2025 ==

Unlimited travel options haven't made Luton and Dunstable into crime ridden hell holes, so why would easing travel options make the UK and France so?

 

[Trainbike46]

Because Lille Europe only has two secure platforms that are heavily used and cannot accommodate a train on a 30-45 minute layover for border checks without interrupting existing Brussels/Paris - London services.
Calais only sees four trains per day or so, which could accommodate this with either none or minimal changes from as it is now.

Paris services do not serve Lille so do not need a secure platform, but can use the through tracks instead. Brussels services only require a secure platform in the London-direction, and there are large gaps between them. It is entirely plausible to have a london-bound train stand there for an hour, for occasional trains. As zwk500 says, any services from beyond Brussels that would use a shuffle could do one at Brussels instead

However, Frankfurt, Cologne, and Geneva all justify security at the far end instead of bothering with a shuffle. A Geneva service could potentially serve Marne-La-Vallee as well.

 

[Chester1]

Unlimited travel options haven't made Luton and Dunstable into crime ridden hell holes, so why would easing travel options make the UK and France so?

I didn't say it would make either crime ridden hell holes but it would mean the criminals travelling between the two countries could move freely. France had to put up with that with its land neighbours because of the porus nature of land borders. Please could you clarify whether you are against border controls full stop, or just them between the UK and Schengen?

 

[NCT]

I didn't say it would make either crime ridden hell holes but it would mean the criminals travelling between the two countries could move freely. France had to put up with that with its land neighbours because of the porus nature of land borders. Please could you clarify whether you are against border controls full stop, or just them between the UK and Schengen?

EU (or de facto EU) countries are economically and culturally sufficiently similar and have a comprehensive EU-wide legal framework with multi-lateral cooperation and extradition arrangements. Practically there's little difference to Metropolitan Police and West Midlands Police working on joint cases. There are enough economical and practical reasons for the UK and other EU countries to be functionally integrated as though it's between states of the US. I only advocate abolishing controls between nations under a comprehensive political union with shared values.

 

[HSTEd]

Calais is a particularly underutilized station for Eurostar, and it already has a 'layby' style layout that would allow passengers from the Schengen zone (Frankfurt/Cologne/Amsterdam/Brussels etc) to de-train. Passengers headed to the UK could complete border-entry there and reboard the train afterwards, while not interrupting other Eurostar services that would go past on the thru lines.

That sort of procedure has been done historically at Lille, I believe.

I don't think its going to result in a particularly attractive train service.

May as well just do it at Brussels and avoid all the extra hastle of extending the Eurostar at all!

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 19 Jul 2025 ==

If the last government maintained a safe route for asylum and resourced asylum processing properly and returned those without a case then we wouldn't have been such a magnet for illegal crossings.

Well that would just result in very large numbers of people claiming asylum, which would be politically suicidal.
There are tens of millions of people in the world with a plausible claim for asylum, possibly hundreds of millions.

Returning large numbers of people is essentially impossible and always has been - even during EU membership the return rate was negligible.
(EDIT: And if you attempt to put a cap on numbers, you won't actually eliminate the irregular crossing issue)

Without border controls, there would be a strong incentive for EU countries to "solve" their asylum issue by buying the relevant people bus/train tickets to London. Just as homeless people are regularly bussed around the US to "get rid" of them. The UK is highly attractive on account of its English speaking population, so very large numbers of asylum seekers would take the offer without complaint.

 

[AlastairFraser]

We are getting to slightly comical levels of paranoid social profiling.

As much as I would love the UK to join Schengen and for open borders, even in that eventuality, it will still be a target that will need secure stations and some form of screening. The AVE network in Spain has security too for deterrence, so it isn't unprecedented even within Schengen.

 

[BottleTheWater]

I think the easiest option going forward would be to build a new immigration and customs facility at Calais to efficiently process both Schengen and CTA passengers.

The best option would be a cross-platform transfer, across a very wide platform, with a plethora of electronic passport gates and a handful of manned passport booths that could process an entire train within fifteen or twenty minutes. It might actually be quicker than the current setup in St Pancras or Gare du Nord if it is specially designed for processing train passengers. The next option would be a split-level operation with three levels, the British side on the top level and the French side on the bottom level with the immigration and customs on the middle level.

London to Belin seems to be too far for a day trip by train, but could work as a sleeper train. Whether there is any desire and money in Berlin to maintain an elaborate passport and customs control in a very busy train station simply for a single night train from London to Berlin is the main question.

A day train with multiple stops in-between could work, but it would be virtually impossible without establishing numerous immigration facilities throughout Germany which would probably not happen in any climate. A train that is cleared in the UK could theoretically make stops at Lille, Strasbourg, Frankfurt, on the way to Berlin, but it would be unfeasible on the reverse.

The current Paris to Berlin train terminates at Berlin Fredericiastraße station which was the station where one could cross from West Berlin to East Berlin, and hence maintained the immigration controls to enter East Berlin.

On the discussion about immigration, one thing people tend to forget is that most immigration into continental western Europe comes from the region such as Africa and the Middle East. They have a much more permissive policy to illegal immigration is large parts of Europe (and objective policy in other parts) which would simply be impractical in the UK. In the future, the UK might be able to lump itself to the same immigration policy, but currently it is too reliant on immigration and economic relations from the Asia-Pacific region.

 

[signed]

For a sleeper, you could do the controls in the train itself after departure, I am quite sure for a low-ish density sleeper, API (Advanced Passenger information), you could manage that without that much issues and that many loopholes in a few hours worth. Especially as such a train would need to depart quite early in the evening.

 

[zwk500]

For a sleeper, you could do the controls in the train itself after departure, I am quite sure for a low-ish density sleeper, API (Advanced Passenger information), you could manage that without that much issues and that many loopholes in a few hours worth. Especially as such a train would need to depart quite early in the evening.

So give the sleeper already has to beat all the blocks, you're forcing it to depart even earlier so they can turf anybody off at Ashford or Calais if they did get on?

 

[signed]

So give the sleeper already has to beat all the blocks, you're forcing it to depart even earlier so they can turf anybody off at Ashford or Calais if they did get on?

Berlin to London is a 14-16h rough calc trip, you won't get it departing after 8pm at the latest, and you only have to do that on the Berlin-London direction of the trip because of the facilities in London.

 

[zwk500]

Berlin to London is a 14-16h rough calc trip, you won't get it departing after 8pm at the latest, and you only have to do that on the Berlin-London direction of the trip because of the facilities in London.

but again, if you need the time in Lille or Calais or wherever to kick people off then you're going to be forcing an equally earlier departure. Although for Berlin-London the obvious thing to do is get a sleeper from Berlin to Brussels or Amsterdam and then get on the day Eurostar.

 

[signed]

but again, if you need the time in Lille or Calais or wherever to kick people off then you're going to be forcing an equally earlier departure. Although for Berlin-London the obvious thing to do is get a sleeper from Berlin to Brussels or Amsterdam and then get on the day Eurostar.

Not really. Such a long sleeper trip would stop at intermediate stops where people could be kicked out, wouldn't be worth it to not.

Of course you have to deal with the security aspect of stopping intermediately, and that is a given that it is unrealistic

 

[BottleTheWater]

Not really. Such a long sleeper trip would stop at intermediate stops where people could be kicked out, wouldn't be worth it to not.

Of course you have to deal with the security aspect of stopping intermediately, and that is a given that it is unrealistic

The UK also does not like the idea of doing passport checks on-board the train due to security lapses.

 

[signed]

The UK also does not like the idea of doing passport checks on-board the train due to security lapses.

If that is not possible (which I of course get), then having a guaranteed connection between the sleeper and the ES at Brussels at a reasonable hour of the morning/evening is likely to be the best option.

Doing a sleeper shuffle is going to be even worse than a day train shuffle.

 

[BottleTheWater]

If that is not possible (which I of course get), then having a guaranteed connection between the sleeper and the ES at Brussels at a reasonable hour of the morning/evening is likely to be the best option.

Doing a sleeper shuffle is going to be even worse than a day train shuffle.

A key difference between Continental Europe and the UK (which I alluded to earlier) was that immigration and economic links in much of Continental Europe was universally from the immediate surrounding region such as North Africa and the Middle East. The UK retains a lot of economic links and sizable immigration links to the Asia-Pacific region which makes the Continental style immigration policy impractical to achieve. However, the direction that the UK is heading would likely lead to a situation where a Continental style immigration policy could be permitted in the UK in the future, but currently it would be bad for the UK economy.

I agree that a sleeper shuffle is impractical as well. The only method that I can see a sleeper between London and Berlin working without major infrastructure upgrades would be a one-way sleeper cleared at St Pancras, dropping off at numerous German cities at the end, and the return journey going all the way to Lille and then transfer to an existing Eurostar to London. But it seems too much hassle for what could be achieved through proper through-ticketing for a small minority that would do such a long train journey when air travel is probably less hassle, so I really do not envisage that many people taking up the offer.

 

[Krokodil]

One way I could see allowing intra-Schengen journeys would be to run two 200m units attached to each other without a corridor connection. Eurostar units are so long anyway that the staffing costs would be similar. One unit could be limited to UK-bound passengers who have been checked, the other for intra-Schengen. At the last Schengen stop (Lille or Brussels most likely), the intra-Schengen unit could be emptied, swept, and filled with UK-bound passengers.

You don't need seperate units, they've taken intra-Schengen passengers on Eurostars before by segregating off those carriages from the rest, and sweeping them before allowing new passengers on at Lille. This is probably the easiest way of serving stations to Germany, given that you're going to need to commandeer the existing paths to do so without sacrificing station calls.

It's Little England paranoid xenophobia.

Whenever I have entered Germany in the last few years (whether from Austria, Poland or Belgium) the train has been held for passport checks. Would you regard that as "kleiner Deutscher paranoia"?

London to Belin seems to be too far for a day trip by train, but could work as a sleeper train. Whether there is any desire and money in Berlin to maintain an elaborate passport and customs control in a very busy train station simply for a single night train from London to Berlin is the main question.

The UK also does not like the idea of doing passport checks on-board the train due to security lapses.

Sleepers are the sort of trains where onboard checks are actually practical. Or just make use of the facility at St Pancras that used to service the Disney trains.