Standing in a monster queue at Paris Gare du Nord a couple of weeks ago got me ranting again about the poor service offered by Eurostar. OK, this time it was not the benighted operators’ fault as it was a failure of the technology used by the French border police which meant that we were all forced into special pens set up two floors below the normal entrance, and stood staring at the strange candy store and the enticing patisserie while shuffling slowly forward. The train eventually left – and arrived at St Pancfras – half an hour late, not enough to be a real pain, nor to claim compensation.
Undoubtedly, many of the issues undermining the service standard of Eurostar are not its fault. The whole ridiculous palaver of having every bag checked was written into the act creating the Channel Tunnel and cannot be ignored. The cramped stations at both ends, especially Gare du Nord, are again not the fault of Eurostar although a more active and engaged company might have worked harder to improve the terminal facilities. St Pancras does have much unused space which despite the high cost of alterations would be worth adapting. I wrote many times years ago about the football field space at the end of the buffers for whose existence no coherent explanation has ever been given to me. Speeding up the check in – which to be fair has improved with QR technology – would mean that the mandatory ‘arrive half an hour before departure’ could be removed which in turn would create space. Again, the high fares are not entirely Eurostar’s fault as the charges to use HS1 and the tunnel are high, but a more flexible company might have battled harder to get them reduced.
Remarkably, Eurostar now serves fewer stations than before Covid, despite the addition of Amsterdam. Of the stations blessed with the additional moniker of ‘International’, only St Pancras deserves that accolade, as Stratford has never served Eurostar and Ebbsfleet as well as Ashford remain abandoned. Eurostar complains that it is not worthwhile to pay for extra border police but that is a poor excuse given that this would help reduce the overcrowding at St Pancras, as well as boosting passenger numbers
Now though Eurostar may at last have to be more fleet of foot with the arrival of competition. It is a confusing situation with a slew of potential operators arriving like London buses used to be, all bunched up. There have been half a dozen companies expressing interest whose chances of success have been boosted by the decision by the Office of Rail and Road to force Eurostar to share its east London depot at Temple Mills with other users. However, there is still limited space and any new operator may well have to look to other sites to store its trains overnight, and crucially maintain them and empty the toilet tanks.
While some of these potential new players may not have the cash or the stamina ever to operate and, indeed, there is never going to be room for all of them, this is the first time in 30 years that there is a strong possibility of Eurostar being challenged. Virgin have said it is prepared to commit £700m to buy a new set of trains to run services to Brussels, Paris and even possibly Amsterdam, but we are yet to see the colour of its money. Richard Branson has a reputation of claiming to launch services which never materialise but nevertheless he is a serious player. So possibly is Trenitalia, though the length of a journey between, say, London and Milan which would be around eight hours might not be a marketable proposition. Indeed, we have been here before. attempts always fell at the first hurdle. Deutsche Bahn even brought one of its ICE trains through the tunnel to St Pancras in 2010 promising services to Germany would start within a couple of years, but nothing materialised.
Now, helpfully, the Campaign for Better Transport has brought out a timely report, Runways to railways: unlocking the potential of the Channel Tunnel. Rightly, the campaign group laments the fact that the government has shown no interest in developing an international rail policy which would encourage greater use of the tunnel and take planes out of the sky. Indeed, boosting services through the tunnel would free up aviation capacity at Heathrow less needed, but there has been no such coordinated thinking from the Department for Transport – instead we have had the ridiculous decision by Rachel Reeves to encourage the building of a third runway which few even in the aviation industry think will ever see the light of day given the environmental considerations.
The report does not shy away from considering the difficulties of creating new services. Indeed, at the launch of the document, Jon Worth, a long time advocate for greater cross Channel and indeed cross border rail travel throughout Europe gave a presentation which highlighted the difficulties. Some obvious destinations for high speed rail services through the tunnel.
There has been progress on the regulatory and safety front which has opened up the possibility of more types of train being allowed in the tunnel. No longer is it necessary to have 400 m long trains which could be evacuated into one half and then detached to ride out safely if there is a fire. This was always a daft scenario and indeed was not used when there were evacuations in the tunnel. Therefore Worth reckons there are at least four models of high speed train which could be accepted for use through the tunnel built respectively by Talgo, Siemens, Alstom and Hitachi.
However, the trains would still need separate entrances and exits at every station they serve given the tight border requirements, and that rules out some destinations. For example, Worth reckons that it would be impossible to serve either Lyon or Marseille, though there is a slight possibility that there might be room at Lyon airport. Worth reckon there could be a relatively easy win with Rotterdam although this would require considerable labour as a platform would have to be transferred over temporarily to Eurostar each time a train called there. A bit of a hassle, but feasible. More pertinently, there are two strong possibilities, both supported locally: a service linking London with several potential destinations in Switzerland, probably by having a 200m trains serving different destinations and linking up; and northern Germany where Frankfurt, Cologne and Dusseldorf would all offer considerable markets. That local support is crucial as without it the already considerable difficulties become an insuperable obstacle.
Any progress on this will, however, require an input from the government, and preferably some serious engagement and support, perhaps, shock horror, even some financial seed funding. The report is right to highlight this lacuna in government thinking. As the report argues the Department for Transport, the Treasury and even number 10 should work together to promote these links. As it concludes, ‘By working with European partners, the UK can ensure that international rail travel remains a practical, efficient, and sustainable option for future generations’. What could be a better way to show that, despite Brexit, we are really Europeans especially at a time when our ‘special relationship’ with that lot over the pond is looking, well, a bit less ‘special’.
Celebrating VE day 80th anniversary
My book, The Liberation Line, on the railwaymen who rebuilt the lines after D Day, enabling the Allies to sweep through France and beyond, has just been published as a paperback. Most fortuitously, I have been able to add an extra section following relatives of some of these 40,000 soldiers coming up to me at talks on the book. Amazingly, at the book launch in Kentish Town, I was approached by the grandson of a man mentioned in the list at the end of the book of those railwaymen who had been killed while serving abroad. Then, at a talk at York, the son of Ernest Milner, who was a signaller at Bayeux for several months after D Day and kept a diary came up to me and I have now included Ernest’s story. There is also a new photograph, provided by my friend Peter Lewis showing his father in law holding up a sign saying ‘Last Bridge of the War’ .
I am sure there are plenty more such stories out there, and I would love to hear them. The story of these men has been ignored for too long and they need to be recognised. Indeed, they should have had a special service medal. And if you want to buy a signed copy of the book, email me.