“QUITE A LOT HAS BEEN GOING ON RECENTLY”

We have some fairly positive news to report this month, beginning with: RUNWAYS TO RAILWAYS : UNLOCKING THE GROWTH POTENTIAL OF THE CHANNEL TUNNEL Monday 31st March – 6pm to 8pm in London – The Campaign for Better Transport will be holding a panel discussion about how the UK can make better use of International Rail. See below to register for this free event. https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/runways-to-railways-unlocking-the-growth-potential-of-the-channel-tunnel-tickets-1262329444349?aff=oddtdtcreator RESTORING INTERNATIONAL SERVICES FROM ASHFORD & EBBSFLEET A group of Kent & Sussex MPs have met with Eurostar urging them to carry out a proper assessment of consumer demand for train services serving these 2 stations in Kent. They also met with Virgin & the Rail Minister who confirmed they were both keen to see

EUROPE RETURNS TO THE UK IN 2025

This year the European Passenger Federation will hold their 22nd annual conference in Swindon at the Steam Museum, which is near to the rail station. This will be the first time they have held their conference in the UK since 2008. The town of Swindon has a rich rail history and is associated with Rail 200 – a range of events across the UK celebrating 200 years of the railways. The conference will take place on Friday 13th June and Saturday 14th June. European Rail campaign (UK) is a member of the European Passenger Federation, which means that members of our campaign are entitled to pay the reduced fee for the conference. See here for further details about the conference:

FIRST STEPS TOWARDS INCREASED CAPACITY AT LONDON ST PANCRAS INTERNATIONAL

Finally, “Active Thinking” have now published their initial report which suggests capacity at the over-crowded Eurostar Terminal could actually be increased by around 33% during the next 3-4 years. They also say that in the long-term, with a re-design of the terminal, capacity could be further doubled to cater for up to 5,000 passengers per hour. We now have to hope that the terminals at the other end of the line in Europe will also be able to cope with the extra passengers. For further details please see : https://www.railwaygazette.com/uk/study-finds-international-passenger-capacity-at-london-st-pancras-could-be-doubled/68004.article AND THEN COULD THERE NOW BE SOME COMPETITION WITH EUROSTAR ? There was a very interesting session of “The House of Commons All-Party Parliamentary Rail Group on the 19th November.

30 YEARS OF EUROSTAR – AN ANNIVERSARY TO CELEBRATE ?

Eurostar is 30 years today, since regular train services started to run through the channel tunnel. It was not until 2007 that the full benefits of High-speed rail were realised when HS1 was completed when the London Terminal was moved from Waterloo to St Pancras. Although, in recent years, a through service from London to Rotterdam and Amsterdam has been introduced, other services have been permanently withdrawn or not re-instated since the outbreak of Covid in early 2020. There are no longer any through services from the UK to EuroDisney, the South of France or the Ski resorts in the French Alps. Since Covid, trains no longer serve the intermediate stations of Ebbsfleet, Ashford and Calais Frethun. WHERE ARE WE

NOW IS THE TIME FOR EUROSTAR TO RETURN TO KENT

It is now about 4 years, since Eurostar stopped serving Ashford and Ebbsfleet. After a few difficult years due to Covid, Eurostar have recently announced “healthy profits”, increasing passenger numbers and an order for new trains. 2024 could be the ideal opportunity to re-launch these services to co-incide with the 30th anniversary of rail services through the Channel Tunnel. Yet, Eurostar still have no plans to re-instate these services either in 2024 or 2025. People in Kent will still have to travel back to and from London and pay the extra fare to Southeastern trains. As Eurostar can issue cheap add-on tickets to/from any station in Belgium, surely, they could do the same to/from any station in Kent? See here

EPF MEETS WITH EUROSTAR

EPF MEETS WITH EUROSTAR

Through our membership of the European Passenger Federation (EPF), we passed on our concerns to our EPF reps for the first high level meeting held with the new Eurostar on the 19th of January. EPF sent reps from the UK, Belgium, France and the Netherlands. Eurostar have acknowledged that they needed better contingency plans to deal with the large number of passengers affected at times of major disruption. They also seem to be making some progress with plans to introduce better through ticketing arrangements between the UK and European stations not directly served by Eurostar. For example, German Railways (Deutsche Bahan) have recently re-introduced through ticketing on Eurostar from London to and from German destinations. Unfortunately, there is still no

EVOLYN came in OCTOBER, then HEURO arrived in NOVEMBER, will it be VIRGIN in DECEMBER?

Despite the many obstacles put in the way of train companies running high-speed trains between the UK and Europe, recently 2 consortiums have made public announcements of their plans to compete with Eurostar. While others have come and gone over the years, maybe this time we will eventually enjoy some real competition with a more frequent and cheaper service. Competition in recent years seems to have brought significant benefits to passengers using the high-speed lines in Spain and Italy. It remains to be seen whether any of these plans will see the light of day. On the 11th of October, EVOLYN (a Spanish-led consortium of various investors) announced plans to order 12 trains for a service through the channel tunnel

BELGIAN TRANSPORT MINISTER SHOWS US THE WAY FORWARD

Earlier this month Georges Gilkenet the Belgian Transport Minister gave a very positive interview at the RailTech 2023 conference held in Brussels. He outlined the long-term commitment his Government has made to develop the rail network over the next 10 years. During the interview he made clear the importance of rail in helping the Belgian Government meet their targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. He also confirmed his commitment to develop Brussels as a night train hub by announcing that night trains will pay no track access charges or energy costs in Belgium for the next 2 years. You can find out more here at: https://www.railtech.com/all/2023/06/09/belgian-minister-gilkinet-talks-rail-challenges-night-trains-and-more/, where he gave a 12-minute interview in English. This is in marked contrast to

EUROSTAR – A GLIMMER OF LIGHT AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL ?

Last October, we posted an item highlighting how Eurostar has been effectively strangled since the start in 1994 from reaching it’s full potential. We then sent letters to various media outlets based on this item – in case you missed it see the monthly news item on 12th October 2022 at https://www.eurorailcampaignuk.org/monthly-news/ . Although it was not picked up by the National Media it was published in full in the December issues of Modern Railways, Todays Railways-Europe and Railwatch. Later on, in early February another fortnightly publication called Rail covered the topic in 3 separate articles in the same edition, including one by Christian Woolmar in his regular column. These articles all explained how and why Eurostar could not charge

KENT ALMOST ISOLATED FROM EUROPE – AGAIN!!

It will soon be 3 years before Kent lost its’ direct Eurostar services from Ashford and Ebbsfleet with no sign of them returning anytime soon. Since then, Kent residents have had to double back to London St Pancras and pay extra just to take a train across the channel to Europe. We are now asking Eurostar to offer free or reduced fares on the connecting HS1 services from Ashford International & Ebbsfleet to St Pancras run by South Eastern Trains. In the meantime, the choice of cross channel ferry services from Dover to Calais for foot passengers is substantially reduced. DFDS no longer take foot passengers on any of their services and P & O have limited foot passengers to