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Eurostar to stop serving Ebbsfleet and Ashford International stations until 2022


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29 minutes ago, phil-b259 said:

 

Or space.

 

One of the best ways of doing this is to have a dedicated home office (suitably furnished with a popper office chair, laptop mount, foot rest, etc) - you don't take ANY work (or carry out work related activities) out of that room and you don't go into that room other than for work.

 

If however your 'home office is the kitchen worktop, bedroom then maintaining such a disciplined outlook is considerably more difficult - particularly if you share the property with another home worker or have distractions like young children around the house.

 

Given that most houses do not come with a home office (if you have one its normally because you happen to have a spare bedroom or an extension has been built to create one, I suggest that the majority of those currently working from home are at a disadvantage from the start....

I think we will see new flat and house design evolve to create more flexible space to enable people to home work more easily. 

I am one of the lucky ones in that I use our 4th Bedroom as an office but with my wife returning to work we really need a second office. My choices are to ;

 

Return to old way of working which means 1.5 hour commute to one of the 2 UK offices I can use

 

Or

 

Build a garden office so we have a second office for my wife or I to use.

 

I am choosing the latter as in the long run it will save me money, time and hassle and we can use the Garden room for other things (eg a layout !) if I do end up in a more office based role. From a family point of view I see more of my wife and Kids and can use the time I used to commute to in the morning  to do work (helpful to speak to colleagues in Eastern Europe/Asia) and in the evening to exercise. 

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All these posts about forcing people to goto work, to stay home, to force requirements...

 

Cant people decide for themselves ?

Before 2020, for the most part Britain was in a victorian factory mindset.

People have a choice now.

Let them decide what works best.

 

if working from home works, let them do it.

if they want to goto the office let them do it.

if they can work from a coffee shop for a few hours, inbetween gym, picking up kids and shopping, let them do it.

 

But they have a demonstrated choice now that works.


Change is hard, but its coming, indeed its arrived and here to stay. Transport, Retail, Property markets will need to adjust to, accept it, otherwise its going to suffer.

 

 

Edited by adb968008
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I telephoned Sky the other week, to renegotiate my subscription with them and to get the monthly cost significantly reduced.

Which I did successfully, I might add.

Anyway, I got chatting to the guy on the other end of the phone and I asked if he was working from home ( you can generally tell from the general ambiance of the call, if not from any background noise).

He said yes.

I asked how was he finding it and he said it was brilliant.

 

Apparently, when he took the job, it entailed an hour and fifteen to twenty minutes to get to work. Allowing for a contingency he usually allowed one and a half hours minimum for his commute.

So he was spending about 3 hours a day in commuting time.

 

He said his lifestyle was much better as a result, with no commuting time or travel costs and he had more time to spend with his wife and young child.

Now that his local sports centre had reopened, he could also get to the gym a couple of times a week, at more civilised times and he had more time  to meet with friends and family

Altogether, he said he was much happier and didn’t miss the office environment at all.

 

 

On another note, we know a chap who, 3 years ago, started a business building garden rooms and offices.

At first they were all log cabin style structures, but he’s since started building more contemporary style buildings.

These garden buildings come in kit form from a manufacturer and apparently once you know how they go together, are quite straightforward to erect and fit out.

The business has been doing very well, with a full order book, but since around March, his backlog of orders has exploded and I was told just this morning that he currently has over 40 orders outstanding, mostly for fully fitted out, insulated and heated garden offices.

His supplier has apparently returned to full manufacturing capacity, but demand for their products has increased and it’s become difficult to place orders and obtain delivery over the short to medium term. 
Hence he has now placed orders with an importer of Russian made kit buildings.

The first delivery is due next week.
My neighbour, who is a good friend of the chap, says that home working has driven this boom.

His own daughter has been working from home for 6 months and her employer says a return to office working won’t be before February or March at the earliest.

 

 

 

 

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Edited by Ron Ron Ron
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2 hours ago, phil-b259 said:

 

 

 

Similarly there was an article where another person working from home noted they were suffering from severe back pain due to the use of home furniture while hunched over a laptop. When this person was able to return to her office the back pain eased as they had a properly designed office chair and desk to use that enabled the correct posture to be maintained.

 

My take is that if companies want people to work from home then they should pay for proper ergonomically designed office furniture to be supplied to the employee and pay a contribution towards heating, lighting costs (i.e. everything they save on paying for because they no longer have to hire office space). In an ideal world there would also be some mechanism where those able to could also claim an extra payment so as to build a dedicated 'home office' (as an extension or loft conversion)

 

 


I do 2000 steps a day just walking around the house, including stairs etc.  Thats before going outside... in the office i’m knackered from the earlies/lates and flop to the chair inbetween tea and biscuits. I’m always on my feet, and feel much more alert on calls... i’m nearly 8000-10k steps a day, before would be 3000 all in, inc walking to the station.

 

If people are having back pains at home, perhaps they should consider investing in furniture, with their commute savings, or if it doesn’t work.. go back to the office.
Close to my home is a huge lavendar field, in July it was full of people working with laptops, phones and bees buzzing around... what a great place to work for a day... the farmer capitalised on it, opened a mobile cafe and coffee shop.., even served alcohol.
 

I’m much more mobile, consistently thru the day (as per earlier, i’m on the couch down stairs since my last call upstairs, about to write up my final reports), my final call of the day will be whilst watering tomatoes, with the phone on headset, so I can drop in at the right moments, instead of trying to do a call in a crush somewhere under Farringdon on a 700 trying to get out early on a friday, listening to a weekly summary.
 

As for social isolation, I know my neighbours better now than Ive ever known them before,I see them all the time now.

 

Individuals can claim an allowance from the Inland Revenue for using a dedicated home office space for business..its either a set rate, or a % of the property (though the latter is more generous, it also includes clawback in capital gains).

Edited by adb968008
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I won't go into the working from home thing. Suffice to say I wrote the department's guide for it. 

 

The loss of Ebbsfleet for the next couple of years really makes Eurostar less viable for us. We tend to visit Brussels, Amsterdam, & Rotterdam 3 or 4 times a year. 

Home to Brussels via Ebbsfleet was under 3 hours. Via St Pancras, it is now 4 1/4 hours to allow for multiple trains in, longer check in and longer journey. It just means flying from LCY or LGW is now faster allowing for check in.  

 

Brussels' Eurostar terminal is now worse than ever with over half the waiting area now devoted to a monster sized duty free shop. 

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4 hours ago, GeoffAlan said:

 Not just the SE. Last time I went to Paris I drove to Ashford, paid for secure parking and caught the EUROSTAR. 

The cost of parking, petrol and a Motorway meal stop was less than the single rail fare for one to KX. As there was two of us we saved a fortune. AND......

Our home station for the KX train is Darlington. The return fare for one Darlington to KX and back was more than the petrol, parking and Eurostar return fare for both of us. 

 

Who buys a ticket to St P or King's X to get the Eurostar?

 

Check out the return ticket to London International CIV. This is usually valid at any time of day (no peak restrictions), covers the transfer across London and the return is valid for two months; the CIV bit - if your feed to the Eurostar is delayed, this guarantees a replacement seat on the next available service. The observant may have noticed that all Eurostar, Thalys and others have the acronym CIV printed on their tickets!

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Home working has been established as a concept for many years.   Living in the same building as one eats and works is nothing new. Some are even gated communities with guards to keep undesirables.  There was a big one at Wormwood Scrubs near OOC and one at Princetown on the branch from Yelverton where people could live and work for years at a time without ever leaving.

Meanwhile commuting is dead. The City is dying. Commuting 4 hours a day, 20 hours a week makes no sense. Living and working in the Country is the new black. Some rail lines are no longer viable. Get used to it. 

Edited by DavidCBroad
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21 minutes ago, corneliuslundie said:

.... Let's keep to the topic.

 

 

Indeed. Eurostar, like the airlines, are going to suffer much reduced demand for the next 18 months or more.

I wonder if the remaining Class 373 sets will now be sent to the scrap man?

 

 

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29 minutes ago, corneliuslundie said:

I am not going to get involved in the discussion, but can we please not go over yet again all the arguments on this that have been in several other threads. Let's keep to the topic.

Jonathan

True.

 

Question is will Eurostar return ?

 

Remember Ashford.. forgotten, Stratford.. still born, Calais..forgotten.

Eurostar has always been a capital city thing, the extra stops just slowed things down.

As side of bucket & spade trains (Avignon, Nice, Disney), it maybe they are quietly dropped from the schedule.

 

Other than that, its gone.

 

inconvenient but they've obviously done the math.

Look at it from a Franco-Belgium perspective.. How many passengers want to goto Ashford or Ebbsfleet ?

 

Edited by adb968008
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13 minutes ago, adb968008 said:

inconvenient but they've obviously done the math.

Look at it from a Franco-Belgium perspective.. How many passengers want to goto Ashford or Ebbsfleet ?

 

You'd be surprised at just how busy Ebbsfleet is for returning services. Not so much outbound but inbound I'd say about 25% of the passengers on trains we take would depart at Ebbsfleet coming back from Brussels. Many reasons for this, most notably people being picked up by car. Far easier and cheaper than trying to drive into central London. It was a very convenient alternative. Ashford and Stratford, not so much. Calais the same. 

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2 hours ago, DavidCBroad said:

Meanwhile commuting is dead. The City is dying. Commuting 4 hours a day, 20 hours a week makes no sense. Living and working in the Country is the new black. Some rail lines are no longer viable. Get used to it. 

 

On the other hand, taking a less pessimistic view, a reduction in commuting might actually benefit the rail industry, because no longer will it have to provide expensive resources which are only fully utilised for a fraction of the time, ie the morning and evening peaks Monday to Friday. And with home working, people will have more time for leisure rail trips at times that suit them.

 

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2 hours ago, adb968008 said:

Remember Ashford.. forgotten, Stratford.. still born, Calais..forgotten.

Eurostar has always been a capital city thing, the extra stops just slowed things down.

As side of bucket & spade trains (Avignon, Nice, Disney), it maybe they are quietly dropped from the schedule.

 

Other than that, its gone.

 

inconvenient but they've obviously done the math.

Look at it from a Franco-Belgium perspective.. How many passengers want to goto Ashford or Ebbsfleet ?

 


The first time I travelled on the Eurostar I went from St Pancras to Calais Frethun. It seems like the service Avanti West Coast (and before that Virgin Trains) provided for the intermediate stations on the Trent Valley between Rugby and Stafford - only usually at peak times and alternating between stops at stations (e.g ones that stop at Nuneaton won’t stop at Tamworth as well). The stop at Calais Frethun meant that it didn’t stop at either Ebbsfleet or Ashford. 
 

Must admit that on the two occasions I used the Eurostar I didn’t travel to either Paris or Brussels (got on a London bound train at Lille on the second occasion), but I think that’s more due to the fact that when we tour Europe in the camper van we tend avoid most capital cities. 

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1 hour ago, caradoc said:

 

On the other hand, taking a less pessimistic view, a reduction in commuting might actually benefit the rail industry, because no longer will it have to provide expensive resources which are only fully utilised for a fraction of the time, ie the morning and evening peaks Monday to Friday. And with home working, people will have more time for leisure rail trips at times that suit them.

 

 

I'd thought that myself.  An easy win might be to adopt the Saturday timetable on Mondays-Fridays, as most Saturday timetables these days start early enough and finish late enough, and are usually reasonably frequent throughout the day, without the additional resources needed just for the M-F peaks.

 

Sorry, :offtopic:

 

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5 hours ago, 37114 said:

 

Build a garden office so we have a second office for my wife or I to use.

 

 

All well and good if you have a garden large enough to have one (without taking up all the space that is - most new build starter homes have tiny gardens!). Many younger people live in flats (of which there is an ever increasing number thanks to the Government suspend the rules which prevented office block conversions.

 

As for building houses / flats with home working in mind - is that a pig I see flying by....

 

Any increase in flat . house size means less individual proprieties can be built on a designated piece of land. The lower the number of proprieties the lower the profit developers make. We already have some of the smallest homes but highest prices in Europe and unless ministers are willing to take on the housing lobby (who have proved very good at pleading hardship* so as to protect shareholder payouts) then I simply don't see any extra provision for working from home being made.

 

* Artificially Fiddling the figures so they can claim that including affordable / social housing makes the entire development 'Unviable' and giving councils a pot of cash so as to ensure their development only has owner occupiers in it being the latest wheeze.

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