Proposed new Channel Tunnel services discussion

[zwk500]

tracks are not an issue at STP, only passenger processing so could a feeder service work?
e.g. a few locations that can process channel tunnel passengers that then all have "airside" trains that head too st Pancras for transfer too Eurostar/Virgin/Trentalia? kind of like how there are feeder services too Heathrow for International Flights
could serve from Stratford, Kensington, Manchester, Birmingham etc

Distributing the most cost intensive part of the operation isnt going to make it any cheaper to operate.

 

[Snow1964]

For any potential 'Regional Eurostar' UK to Continental Europe services (which does require Schengen and a HS1-HS2 link, so 2050 at the earliest), I'd imagine that turnover at Stratford International would be quite high, as unless you somehow price London travellers off the services, at least half of the passengers would be getting on/off there.

In that scenario, of both Schengen and a HS1-HS2 link then don't need to worry about pricing London travellers off, because can refill the seats from Stratford or Old Oak Common to Birmingham or Manchester (or wherever European size trains can reach by 2050).

Worth remembering, even without Schengen, if there was an HS1-HS2 link, could probably use the central island at Old Oak, or 7th platform at Curzon Street in segregated form for dedicated European services

 

[Mikey C]

True, it wouldn't be particularly direct, but it's a shot at getting Docklands business passengers away from London City Airport (which has an uncertain future itself) and onto rail.

That would require a vast expansion in the number of destinations served by high speed rail from London though. Neither Paris nor Brussels are served from LCY, so the lack of international services from Stratford isn't harming Docklands to Paris/Brussels travel by Eurostar.

Getting through LCY is very quick, so any train journey more than 3 hours will struggle to be competitive for Docklands traffic.

 

[BRX]

It's not just the time element that pushes people to fly though.

There are various destinations that a lot of people would consider doable by rail but the price ends up too high, and it's usually the Eurostar leg that causes that.

London to Cologne for example - near enough 4 hours, 2 of them to Brussels and another 2 beyond.

If you look, say, a week ahead, and you buy from a retailer that sells it as one journey, the price might be £250 and you'll find that Eurostar leg is responsible for about 80% of that.

I would argue the same applies for longer distances, in the 5-6 hour region that I think quite a lot of people would consider doing by rail if the price was OK.

The hope with greatly increasing the number of trains through the tunnel is that it would bring the cost down and some of these journeys could have a better change of competing on price.

 

[Bald Rick]

Is it really that expensive for the GLA to subsidise Stratford International if it wanted?

Yes, both for capital costs and ongoing.

and the limited capacity of St Pancras Eurostar

It’s not limited for any realistic service specification.

 

[AlastairFraser]

That would require a vast expansion in the number of destinations served by high speed rail from London though. Neither Paris nor Brussels are served from LCY, so the lack of international services from Stratford isn't harming Docklands to Paris/Brussels travel by Eurostar.

Getting through LCY is very quick, so any train journey more than 3 hours will struggle to be competitive for Docklands traffic.

Of course some journeys will continue to be served by air, but with Paris/Brussels/Amsterdam/Rotterdam already on Eurostar, and many of the remaining destinations reachable by changing onto another service in Brussels (e.g. Frankfurt, Luxembourg) or the destination is under consideration for future expansions (e.g. Zurich).
You won't capture all of the traffic, but it's still a market worth targeting.

Yes, both for capital costs and ongoing.

In comparison to the GLA budget?
We're not dealing with a bankrupt borough council here.

It’s not limited for any realistic service specification.

Let's see what happens when competitors start operating and fares drop.
As other forum members have mentioned, demand is heavily suppressed by fare levels and current artificial capacity constraints.
That won't be the case with competition and expansions by Eurostar themselves.

 

[zwk500]

In comparison to the GLA budget?
We're not dealing with a bankrupt borough council here.

In the Network Statement, the total cost to London St Pancras High Speed (formerly HS1 Ltd) which would be billable to the TOC(s) using St Pancras International is a Qualifying Expenditure (Operating & ongoing maintenance Costs) of £5.2m and a Long-term Cost (budgeting for future repairs and renewals) of £1.3m annually.

Those charges are divided between the TOCs using the station by number of vehicle-departures and the size of common and exclusive zones, so the GLA wouldn't be on the hook for all £6.5m (as SE will continue to serve the station) but you can be sure the prospective European operators won't want to be paying millions for a station they don't need to use.

Oh, and that excludes the costs of fitting out the iternational terminal at St Pancras, which despite what the mayor says, doesn't even have passport desks 'sitting idle', it's just a bare concrete shell (which may actually be more attractive to a new operator!)

Let's see what happens when competitors start operating and fares drop.
As other forum members have mentioned, demand is heavily suppressed by fare levels and current artificial capacity constraints.
That won't be the case with competition and expansions by Eurostar themselves.

It will be interesting to see just how far fares do drop. I struggle to see anybody going much below Eurostar's starting price of £40 given the per-seat cost for operating through the Channel Tunnel. But it will be interesting to see the size of each price band 'bucket' and what other ways a competitor may choose to generate non-ticket revenue that can allow them to keep the seat price lower.

 

[danshrimp]

Oh, and that excludes the costs of fitting out the iternational terminal at St Pancras, which despite what the mayor says, doesn't even have passport desks 'sitting idle', it's just a bare concrete shell (which may actually be more attractive to a new operator!)

This is an interesting point. Just thinking out loud...is there a possible world in which the appeal of Stratford to someone like Virgin - especially if they could get exclusive use of it - is that it could be a terminal largely customised to their tastes, unlike St Pancras where they're forced to share a heavy restricted space. They could have a snazzy Virgin business lounge at Stratford for example, and they would encourage their first class customers to board there, while the great unwashed would share the busy terminal at St Pancras with Eurostar customers. If using Stratford allows them to broaden their appeal to the upper end of the market then the significant investment might suddenly seem worthwhile.

 

[SynthD]

This is an interesting point. Just thinking out loud...is there a possible world in which the appeal of Stratford to someone like Virgin - especially if they could get exclusive use of it - is that it could be a terminal largely customised to their tastes, unlike St Pancras where they're forced to share a heavy restricted space. They could have a snazzy Virgin business lounge at Stratford for example, and they would encourage their first class customers to board there, while the great unwashed would share the busy terminal at St Pancras with Eurostar customers. If using Stratford allows them to broaden their appeal to the upper end of the market then the significant investment might suddenly seem worthwhile.

I don't think they can make a premium experience of first class only at Stratford and only standard class at St Pancras. It's more likely they'll pay to take over half of the Eurostar lounge upstairs, or some other adjacent rooms (I would love to see a floorplan of that area with detail they can't release).

 

[Farigiraf]

It will be interesting to see just how far fares do drop. I struggle to see anybody going much below Eurostar's starting price of £40 given the per-seat cost for operating through the Channel Tunnel.

Lower than £40 would already be Lumo/Ouigo territory, and I don't think running a low-quality low-fare service would be too suitable for the Eurotunnel. There's more than enough surpressed demand for Eurostar Standard level travel - i.e. nothing fancy but with a few minimums (wifi, power sockets, food, comfortable seats).

A more realistic fare drop in line with a capacity increase would be to get the average fare from £150+ down to below £100, which still wouldn't be cheap but not overpriced either. Any Channel Tunnel operator pricing scheme shouldn't be based on the assumption that everyone will book months in advance, 1-3 weeks in advance should be the typical window to purchase long-distance international rail fares IMO.

 

[CdBrux]

For those with an hour to spare there is a lot of interesting information in this panel talk (for sure they are coming very much from one side) that addresses many of the points made in the last pages here

https://www.greensignals.org/podcast/trains-to-europe-are-lower-fares-and-more-trains-coming/

 

[NCT]

Based on charging structures of the various pieces of the railway (the chunnel itself in particular), existing load factors and Eurostar profit margins, I would expect average fares to drop by 10-20%, at most. Not a trivial amount, but less earth shattering than some would expect.

 

[The Ham]

Based on charging structures of the various pieces of the railway (the chunnel itself in particular), existing load factors and Eurostar profit margins, I would expect average fares to drop by 10-20%, at most. Not a trivial amount, but less earth shattering than some would expect.

Depends on if that's a fall by (say) 20% in real terms (i.e. allowing for inflation) or cash terms.

For example if by 2035 inflation would have inflated prices from £150 to £180 a fall of 20% would mean £144.

However, if we're thinking that rather than £150 it'll be £120 (so 20% fall from current prices) the latter would feel much cheaper.

 

[NCT]

Depends on if that's a fall by (say) 20% in real terms (i.e. allowing for inflation) or cash terms.

For example if by 2035 inflation would have inflated prices from £150 to £180 a fall of 20% would mean £144.

However, if we're thinking that rather than £150 it'll be £120 (so 20% fall from current prices) the latter would feel much cheaper.

Compared with a counterfactual where Eurostar's monopoly continues.

 

[popeter45]

Distributing the most cost intensive part of the operation isnt going to make it any cheaper to operate.

depends what the cost of boosting capacity at st Pancras is
also would allow you too run smaller but more frequent North of London trains (and enable choice of onwards connection, e.g. one Manchester train could carry Eurostar passengers to Brussels and Virgin passengers to Paris)

 

[Bald Rick]

As other forum members have mentioned, demand is heavily suppressed by fare levels and current artificial capacity constraints.

I’m not sure that demand is heavily surpressed. There is only so much market for the routes Eurostar serve, and most of it is already on the rails.

But even then, HS1 and the tunnel each run out of line capacity long before St Pancras runs out of platform capacity.

Let's see what happens when competitors start operating and fares drop.

One of them, at least, will stop operating is my guess.

A more realistic fare drop in line with a capacity increase would be to get the average fare from £150+ down to below £100, which still wouldn't be cheap but not overpriced either.

£100 is, in my view, cheap for that journey city centre to city centre, given the Eurotunnel toll is in that and there’s no baggage charges etc.

 

[Farigiraf]

£100 is, in my view, cheap for that journey city centre to city centre, given the Eurotunnel toll is in that and there’s no baggage charges etc.

Compared to the cost of running the service, that's true. If you can afford it, that's great for you as well. However, to most travellers, £100 for a 2-3 hour intercity rail service wouldn't be considered cheap at all. It's what you'd expect the flexible fare to be for an intercity route in France (if they existed) or Germany, and budget airlines regularly can beat that price even with baggage.

If Eurostar's competitors offer a lower quality service in return for £100-120 fares, it'd be a hard sell for many non business travellers. You can point to the fact that compared to driving and LeShuttle it's a bargain, but the UK-Continental Europe (taking a car) market has little car-rail mode shift potential so it wouldn't really affect travel choices.

None of this is too relevant anyway as Eurotunnel services are still at the point where trains will easily sell out from just business & higher-end leisure travel, but at some point we will have to start treating it as a link to the European mainland that can compete with other modes, rather than just an expensive shuttle to Paris and Brussels (plus 1-2 thousand/day to other places)

 

[Krokodil]

I’m not sure that demand is heavily surpressed. There is only so much market for the routes Eurostar serve, and most of it is already on the rails.

Make it cheap enough and you'd have no trouble filling as many departures as you can fit in per day.

 

[Farigiraf]

But even then, HS1 and the tunnel each run out of line capacity long before St Pancras runs out of platform capacity.

The capacity issue at STP is the terminal building, not the platforms. There is the planned capacity upgrade which'll be good for the short-to-mid term. However in the long term, if you want to use up HS1 paths to its full extent (as you can only run so many Canterbury/Hastings commuter trains), I don't think St Pancras would be able to handle it. There just isn't really the space for an airport-sized border facility, so any extra services you want to run in addition to the services enabled by the upcoming upgrade would be dependent on the UK joining Schengen. That'll put it into limbo for decades.

 

[Bald Rick]

It's what you'd expect the flexible fare to be for an intercity route in France (if they existed) or Germany, and budget airlines regularly can beat that price even with baggage.

The airlines can beat the Eurostar average price, but then so can Eurostar - That’s what happens when you compare average prices with ‘best‘ prices. Would you believe that half of all Eurostar’s fares are below average?

Eurostar’s prices are, in my view, very reasonable for the city centre to city centre connection they offer, the journey time, and the higher comfort and convenience levels compared to an air journey on the routes they serve.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: Today at 19:52 ==

Make it cheap enough and you'd have no trouble filling as many departures as you can fit in per day.

The market isn’t that big.

If the entire London - Paris air market switched to eurostar, it would fit on 4 return pairs of trains a day. But a good part of that air market won’t swap to eurostar, as it is passengers changing planes at Heathrow or Paris; the train could be free and they’d still fly. Same for Brussels where the one return eurostar a day’s worth of passengers who fly are mostly changing planes at Heathrow.

There’s more to go at with Amsterdam, but it would be surprising if rail could take more than 50% market share (given the journey time and cost vs air), which implies around another 5-6 return trips a day.

Add all that up, add in some growth in existing markets and growth from new destinations, and any reasonably forseeable market could be covered by perhaps 40 departures a day. Or put another way, 3 departures an hour.

 

[AdamWW]

The airlines can beat the Eurostar average price, but then so can Eurostar - That’s what happens when you compare average prices with ‘best‘ prices. Would you beleive that half of all Eurostar’s fares are below average?

Well quite. It's like the news articles that pop up every so often comparing airline fares booked well ahead of time with walk-up rail fares.

Not to mention that Eurostar fares are now freely changeable almost up to departure which I don't think is common with the cheap airline fares.
(Perhaps not much help close to departure if you bought a cheap fare as they will be much more expensive - but you can change it for another cheap fare further in the future - and if I recall correctly they are refundable less a fee up to 7 days before departure. I don't think you usually get that with cheap airline fares either).

 

[Farigiraf]

The airlines can beat the Eurostar average price, but then so can Eurostar - That’s what happens when you compare average prices with ‘best‘ prices. Would you beleive that half of all Eurostar’s fares are below average?

The average fare is not the same as the 'typical' fare, as in general Eurostar services aren't priced randomly, they're priced by loadings and how far in advance you book. Someone booking a midday or afternoon departure without buying months in advance, is nearly always going to be charged an extortionate price compared to the same service offering on domestic intercity services in Western Europe. The early morning or late evening 'cheap' trains are generally useless to non-Londoners, particularly since the P&R option at Ebbsfleet vanished.

Apart from one incredibly rare £45 fare Brussels-London booked about a month in advance a few years back, I've never found a convenient Eurostar departure (from Cambridge) to be good value compared to Interrail for example, even if you're not doing much train travel on the continent.

Eurostar’s prices are, in my view, very reasonable for the city centre to city centre connection they offer, the journey time, and the higher comfort and convenience levels compared to an air journey on the routes they serve.

The notion has gotten very lost in the last few decades, but do remember that the Eurotunnel was about providing the first link from Britain to Continental Europe, and there's a lot more to the Continent than just northern France and Belgium.

The route opened before we knew that low-cost airlines would take the lion's share of 1000km+ journeys, but nonetheless if it were a road tunnel I expect the UK would feel a lot more attached to the continent for the majority of people, and Schengen talks would've been taken more seriously (it would also have been terrible for sustainability and congestion of course).

Despite this, in a rare moment of UK infrastructure progressivism, we went for the rail option. I won't act like we could have had a turn-up-and-go cross border railway by 2026 if privatisation, the 2008 crisis and Brexit hadn't happened, but the fact that Eurostar is seen as little more than a high-cost London-Paris/Brussels shuttle does definitely seem fairly regretful to those around when it was still being proposed. A £30 billion, once-in-a-lifetime crossing (comparable to e.g. the Messina or Øresund crossing), and this is all we do with it (plus an expensive car shuttle).

There isn't anything practical that can be done, but it's food for thought, and puts it into perspective.

 

[Bald Rick]

Someone booking a midday or afternoon departure without buying months in advance, is nearly always going to be charged an extortionate price compared to the same service offering on domestic intercity services in Western Europe.

But the point is it’s not extortionate compared to other methods of making the journey by other modes. And the fact the trains are pretty full means that passengers appear to be content to pay those fares.

FWIW I agree that in a sensible world we’d be in Schengen and seeing London - “various places” services with open calls, and also Manchester / Birmingham - near Europe with open calls. But we’re not in a sensible world.

 

[Krokodil]

The market isn’t that big.

You reckon that it wouldn't grow dramatically if it were flooded with £39 tickets all day (rather than just on the very early/late trains)?

It's not just the London-Paris etc. market, if people saw that they could easily get a weekend in Paris for £78 return they'd be abandoning their plans to go to Prague and getting a bargain trip to Paris instead. The limit is only how much accommodation Paris and London have for each other's population to spend a weekend away. At that price, I wouldn't be surprised to see day trips becoming more popular.

Not that five trains per hour would only be running to existing destinations anyway. Something like:

0.5tph to Brussels + Frankfurt
0.5tph to Brussels + Amsterdam
2tph to Paris (fast)
1tph to Paris (stopping)
1tph using the Interconnexion

 

[Farigiraf]

But the point is it’s not extortionate compared to other methods of making the journey by other modes.

That's quite the generalisation. Every town/city in the UK will have different options to be more convenient, but for example from Cambridge, which has a nonstop express to King's Cross (St Pancras) every half hour, it's really rare that going to anywhere in France, Germany, Switzerland or the Benelux isn't faster and more affordable via Stansted airport. Then look at e.g. Bristol, Birmingham or Colchester, where just boarding a Eurostar service alone takes up half a day. That's dreadfully limited in usefulness for what's meant to be the only fixed link to the continent.

And the fact the trains are pretty full means that passengers appear to be content to pay those fares.

Do you, who I have to guess is quite a bit more involved in the rail industry than me, have any aspiration to see the railway become an actually competitive mode of travel? This statement seems to ignore the incredibly relevant point that capacity on Eurostar is lower than the demand for UK - Continental Europe travel, meaning that naturally if your goal is to make a profit then you can put prices high and fill the trains with one specific business/high-end leisure traveller demographic and disregard everyone else.

If one wants to view Eurotunnel services as a vital international travel corridor then it needs to cater for the entire market, rather than just the higher end of a market segmented route where the low-to-mid end goes by car, coach or plane. There needs to be much more capacity (and probably Schengen) for that, so it's not realistic at the moment, but it's shortsighted to not look past the current Eurostar demographic for who you want to be using the Eurotunnel. Otherwise (to play devil's advocate) we could've just gone for the road tunnel, and done away with the ferries and short-haul flights altogether.

 

[AdamWW]

The average fare is not the same as the 'typical' fare,

Well half the fares are definitely below the mean fare.

Apart from one incredibly rare £45 fare Brussels-London booked about a month in advance a few years back, I've never found a convenient Eurostar departure (from Cambridge) to be good value compared to Interrail for example, even if you're not doing much train travel on the continent.

Maybe I was lucky but last year I paid £64 for an afternoon departure from London to Paris, booking a few months in advance.
That was convenient for me to make my way to London and get to Paris with plenty of time to get my onward couchette train.
It didn't seem an unreasonable price.

 

[AlastairFraser]

I’m not sure that demand is heavily surpressed. There is only so much market for the routes Eurostar serve, and most of it is already on the rails.

But even then, HS1 and the tunnel each run out of line capacity long before St Pancras runs out of platform capacity.

There are nearly 20 million people in the London, South East, East and portions of the East Midlands/South West regions that are close enough to London to make international rail from London attractive.
The airport experience in this country is usually ****, especially with baggage limitations and the "wave of departures" timetabling style that budget airlines typically use.
Domestic holidays or short breaks in the country are often expensive, and weather is temperamental.
So short breaks or holidays in our nearest continental neighbours by rail are a very attractive proposition.
Even £50-£75 each way would be enough to start turning the tide and operators would still make decent profits with a high load factor - I agree that the majority of fares under that would not be viable with LGV/HS1/Eurotunnel fees.
With those lower fares on offer more regularly and the benefits of increased baggage allowances, it won't just impact low cost airlines, but short breaks by rail to the continent will start eating away considerably at the market share of domestic short breaks as well.

One of them, at least, will stop operating is my guess.

I highly doubt it.

£100 is, in my view, cheap for that journey city centre to city centre, given the Eurotunnel toll is in that and there’s no baggage charges etc.

Even with transport at either end and a 10kg cabin bag, Jet2/Ryanair/EasyJet/Vueling, sometimes even BA will beat that for a single to France or Belgium or the Netherlands.
Not to mention Flixbus/Sindbad, and rail + ferry combos, but I would say that competing on price with the latter two is unrealistic.

It's not just the London-Paris etc. market, if people saw that they could easily get a weekend in Paris for £78 return they'd be abandoning their plans to go to Prague and getting a bargain trip to Paris instead. The limit is only how much accommodation Paris and London have for each other's population to spend a weekend away. At that price, I wouldn't be surprised to see day trips becoming more popular.

Precisely, although I think £78 is unrealistic.
£90 return as a day trip special offer on Virgin would be great, especially if you could use Virgin Points (which can be converted from Tesco Clubcard points).

Maybe I was lucky but last year I paid £64 for an afternoon departure from London to Paris, booking a few months in advance.
That was convenient for me to make my way to London and get to Paris with plenty of time to get my onward couchette train.
It didn't seem an unreasonable price.

That's booking miles in advance though.
With the cost of basic socialising like a trip to the pub with a meal and drink, or a night at a bowling alley skyrocketing, if you could keep the cost of a day out on the continent below £125 (my £90 return idea would give you around 40 euro spending money if you're spending £125 in total pp), it would be very attractive to anyone within an hour and a half of St Pancras.
If you could drop that further to a £75 return and fill your trains to the brim, it would be massively popular, even if the £75 option was only secondary cities like Lille or Antwerp.

 

[cle]

I can't think of the last time I spent less than £200...

You reckon that it wouldn't grow dramatically if it were flooded with £39 tickets all day (rather than just on the very early/late trains)?

It's not just the London-Paris etc. market, if people saw that they could easily get a weekend in Paris for £78 return they'd be abandoning their plans to go to Prague and getting a bargain trip to Paris instead. The limit is only how much accommodation Paris and London have for each other's population to spend a weekend away. At that price, I wouldn't be surprised to see day trips becoming more popular.

Not that five trains per hour would only be running to existing destinations anyway. Something like:

0.5tph to Brussels + Frankfurt
0.5tph to Brussels + Amsterdam
2tph to Paris (fast)
1tph to Paris (stopping)
1tph using the Interconnexion

I agree with this re suppressed demand. Yes the air traffic today is X flights... (but really some of the LGW / LTN type folks come from further west and north - vs London and home counties and would continue to fly on EZ) - but there is a discretionary set of people who would travel if it was cheaper. People hate airports and flying, and short flights are disproportionately stressful for the distance achieved... if this was easier or the perception was that it was more accessible, I think the market would be far larger.

We also mostly think about the UK point of sale, but discretionary travel from the other side is another massive growth market, and lower cost train brands have seen a lot of new travel on the continent.

 

[Class15]

The market to Paris could be massive if the prices were slightly cheaper.

I disagree that it’s anywhere near saturated.

 

[AdamWW]

That's booking miles in advance though.

It is, but depending on the time/date of travel the same can be true of budget airlines.

Where they seem to differ is that with Eurostar prices always seem to rise for short notice travel.

Eurostar is a lot more convenient and faster than the previous train-ferry-train combination but there is something to be said for being able to travel at no notice without having to pay an extortionate fare.