Eurostar, are we less enthusiastic about the continent?

[Neil]

I've just read a fascinating article in the Guardian by Andrew Martin where he suggests that the forthcoming reduction in Eurostar services to Paris and Brussels may be as much to do with a reduction in enthusiasm for the continent as it its with the stated reason of fear from the terrorist attacks in both capitals. He contrasts past evidence of our Francophile/Europhile leanings with the current mood. Whatever side of the ongoing Brexit debate your sympathies lie with it's well worth a read.

 

It leads me to wonder if (as a whole) we are less enchanted with the continent, will this also be evident in the world of model railways too? Will the UK sales of Fleischmann, Roco and Joueff decline? If they do how will we tease out a lessening of interest from the economic effects of a weaker pound buying fewer models than before?

[The Stationmaster]

Some of that article is hilarious - quite how anybody could think SNCF was better than BR leaves me stupefied;  SNCF is regarded in business circles in France as an over-manned, inefficient bureaucratic nightmare and many of its train 'services' have long proved the total disconnect between its approach to life and that of most better run European railways.  The big difference from BR was very simple - it had piles of Govt money shovelled in its direction year after year and that would be enough to make any member of BR staff weep with jealousy.

 

And it's that very SNCF approach which might have infected Eurostar because while passenger numbers growth might have turned to decilne the standard SNCF answer to such problems is to take off those trains which don't achieve a 45% load factor.  They - being SNCF - do this without paying any heed to the impact on costs and whether removing a train actually saves or costs money and possibly Eurostar could fall into that all too typically SNCF trap?  

 

However I really do think they, or the writer of the article, need to more carefully analyse why numbers have declined/failed to continue to grow.  If it's leisure traffic then it is probably connected with terrorism in Paris and Bruxelles because apart from anything or anyone else that sort of thing does tend to put off US tourists.  If it's business travellers (and Civil Servants etc) then it could well be down to Brexit.  But what matters is not that numbers have declined but what sort of numbers have declined and why.  And somehow - apart from the increased cost - I can't really see British Francophiles being put off by a  few terrorist incidents while as far as Bruxelles is concerned Eurostar really ought to get on and try to develop the connectional market for onward travel, that is the real advantage of Brussel as it is hardly a major tourist trap (but you can get some excellent chips there).

[pete_mcfarlane]

Some of that article is hilarious - quite how anybody could think SNCF was better than BR leaves me stupefied;

It's a point of almost religious belief in some circles that European railways are always better than ours. 

[woodenhead]

I would have thought that the main market for Eurostar was EU business related travel, with Brexit looming there is probably already a drop and it will continue until it reaches a new level suitable for the type of contact related to the UK being outside the EU.

 

Tourist travel will have been impacted but that would mostly be filler for off peak services.

[Nearholmer]

Could have something to do with woeful marketing too.

 

There are many good onward connections to be had, to family destinations, but Eurostar markets itself very largely for capital cities only, and eventually everyone living within an hour of St Pancras must get "Parised-out".

 

We travelled by rail to and from holiday on Mediterranean coast, with two young children, and it was less annoying, actually quite pleasant, and about the same door-to-door duration as air travel. But, it is a pretty well kept secret.

 

Kevin

[jjb1970]

Tourist travel will have been impacted but that would mostly be filler for off peak services.

 

Tourist travel could also be gaining given the devalued pound makes the UK very good value for money for visitors from overseas.

[Taigatrommel]

I've travelled on a few rail systems, and yes, SNCF stands out as the most consistently unpleasant and irritating - dirty, overcrowded trains and confusing ticketing tiers.  A case in point being what was on the screen as a TER service, so I bought a TER ticket for it, only to find was a "TERGV", and apparently I should have bought a supplement.  The guard was pleasant enough and waived that for me though, understanding my confusion.  It's also true that my last particularly unpleasant journey in Britain was aboard Southern, but that was still cleaner than any French train I've been on.  NS is very usable even with my extremely limited Dutch ability, but can be crowded even outside what I think of as peak times.

 

For services that are simply pleasant to travel aboard I must praise SNCB/NMBS, though some stations leave something to be desired in clarity of information.  Only the new Siemens units fall short of my expectations when one turns up on an IC service, but they're perfectly acceptable commuter trains.

[jjb1970]

I have made no secret of the fact that I voted remain and if there was to be another referendum would vote remain again. I think I've also commented on this board that I believe Brexit has been a catalyst which has brought some deeply, deeply unpleasant aspects of British society to the surface. That said, I also think we have to avoid using Brexit as an easy excuse to explain away everything negative that is happening around us. I think that it is inarguable that the collapse of sterling immediately following the referendum and following the tory party conference is primarily down to Brexit but there also seem to be things being blamed on Brexit which paradoxically just damages the credibility of arguments against Brexit by allowing those claiming remainers are being dishonest as well as being bad losers and whingers (in their perception). In this case I don't think Eurostar will have been damaged by post Brexit British sentiment and if anything the devaluation of sterling should be boosting passengers coming to the UK. Somehow I don't think the "send them back" crowd were the core market of Eurostar.

 

On the question of whether British trains are as good as, worse than or equivalent to trains in other countries I'm one of those who believe our trains are far better than we generally consider. I travel by train regularly in a range of countries and I always say that if you want to compare trains in different countries then forget flagship trains and a day trip sort of experience and look at it from the perspectives of "can I get to where I need to go by train" and "how confident am I in the service" and suddenly our trains (Southern excepted) look a lot better than you might think. Our high end inter city services lag behind the high speed services of some other countries but if you look past that I find our services are better than most. To be honest I've really not been impressed by German trains, my experience of Swiss trains was not that brilliant and although I love Denmark and like their trains I certainly wouldn't say they were better than ours. I used to use NS quite a bit as one of my former employers biggest overseas offices is in Rotterdam and we had some major clients in the Netherlands but whilst I wouldn't say NS were bad neither would I say they were any better than British trains. I agree with the poster above that SNCB is a quietly efficient and effective operator that I enjoy using. At the other end, I do like Italian trains, I'd rank them as being much worse than British trains in most respects but its a lovely country with terrific food and I just find rail travel there very enjoyable. The one country that I find does make us look second class is Japan, but in my opinion Japanese trains make all the European systems look a bit second class.

[asmay2002]

Given the ongoing saga at Southern, that may not be unjustified   Plus the fact that the total privatisation of the UK rail industry hasn't lowered fares, as was the key promise of the decision, but actually raised them far beyond inflation levels as the Thatcher Gov't stealthily wanted to get rid of railway subsidies, which was the real reason of privatisation.

 

The Thatcher Govt didn't privatize the railways.  It was John Major's Govt which did. 

 

In fact, the British pay far more per annum to travel a certain distance then their Continental counterparts for exactly the same distance. And often suffering more delays, diminished services, no seating and even total failure of the service as the train doesn't show up

 

Comparing fares is NOT a reflection of what people pay for the service. In Britain the passenger pays a greater proportion of the cost of the service he is using.  In much of the continent the taxpayers pay much of the fares via Govt subsidies.   Fares have risen much more than inflation so the the people who use the service are the ones that pay for it (although they are still actually subsidized by the taxpayer) .  Why should people who don't use the railway at all subsidize railway passengers?  Or the vast majority of it who use it sparingly subsidize whinging commuters?

[asmay2002]

I think that it is inarguable that the collapse of sterling immediately following the referendum and following the tory party conference is primarily down to Brexit .

 

It was established well before the vote was even taken that sterling was overvalued by about 20%.  Whilst Brexit has injected a note of reality and burst the bubble it was going to happen sooner or later anyway and this is just another standard remoaner lie that keeps getting recycled. 

[jjb1970]

It was established well before the vote was even taken that sterling was overvalued by about 20%.  Whilst Brexit has injected a note of reality and burst the bubble it was going to happen sooner or later anyway and this is just another standard remoaner lie that keeps getting recycled. 

 

I don't disagree that the value of sterling is about more than Brexit, I also agree that some devaluation will boost parts of the economy provided we can control inflation (that is a significant caveat). However, I do think it is inarguable that the plunge immediately following the result and then the second plunge when Theresa May spooked the markets by providing a date for triggering article 50 and giving indications that she's open to a so called hard Brexit were both the result of Brexit factors. The worrying thing wasn't so much the drop, but the speed of the drop. Some devaluation can be positive and probably there was going to be a correction however to drop off a cliff figuratively is not a positive indicator.

[pete_mcfarlane]

If Wikipedia is to believed, a 3 Capitals class 373 has 750 seats. The new shiny class 374 trains have 902 seats (20% more). So the reduction in the number of services isn't quite the full story. 

[Nearholmer]

DM

 

Apart from the horrors of what calls itself Southern Railways, I don't recognise your portrayal of the awfulness of the British rail network, and, if it was half as dire as you suggest, it wouldn't be overcrowded, it would be deserted. It isn't wholly wonderful, by any means, but a lot of it is pretty good, which is why a lot of people choose to use it, a lot of the time.

 

My personal experience of road travel in Britain is that it is as much or more of a mixed bag as rail travel. I have had at least as much of my time stolen by road congestion, and lane closures as by rail service failures, which is very poor going, given that I am a frequent rail traveller, but don't drive a lot: until a month ago I commuted daily by rail, and have racked up a grand total of 59 000 miles in my car in the eleven years I've owned it.

 

Or, am I being wooden-headed, and missing some subtle humour on your part?

 

Kevin

 

PS: SNCF staff attitudes seem to cover the full range from the famous French shrug, as they close the ticket office for lunchtime, leaving a queue of about twelve zillion people in flabbergasted anger, through sleeping on the job (TGV on-board cleaning staff), to cheerful obligingness.

[Dunsignalling]

It's also true that everyone who commutes by road benefits enormously from those who use rail instead. Without them, the numbers involved would cause such gridlock that it would be necessary to ban everyone from bringing their car inside the M25 and build huge park-and-rides at every junction for them to transfer to buses.

 

Subsidies to the one don't necessarily disadvantage those who pay but don't benefit directly from them.

 

I no longer have any interest in flying (other than in planes small enough for me to sit next to the pilot, breathing unpolluted air) but I'll be contributing to the billions of pounds of public money that will be thrown at subsidizing the highly profitable, privately owned and operated, air transport industry via the extension to Heathrow airport.   

 

John

[Fat Controller]

I would have thought that the main market for Eurostar was EU business related travel, with Brexit looming there is probably already a drop and it will continue until it reaches a new level suitable for the type of contact related to the UK being outside the EU.

 

Tourist travel will have been impacted but that would mostly be filler for off peak services.

Far from it; an awful lot of their traffic is tour groups, American, Japanese and, more recently, Chinese. These will fly into Paris and out via Heathrow or vice versa, quite often at peak times. Then there are the large number of French nationals based in London; somewhere in excess of 100 000, which make London, by some measurements, about the 5th largest city in France. Whilst some of these might leave post-Brexit, a lot won't unless the entire financial sector ups sticks and leaves.

[caradoc]

 

Fair enough, but all Major effectively did was pulling the trigger after the preparatory work by Mrs Thatcher.

 

 

Why would someone who doesn't own a car pay for the upkeep of the Motorway network? Still, every Briton does, via the Tax Office   And probably even more then the rail network too. As for the whining commuters: they already pay through the nose and percentage-wise more then car commuters. Still, trains are late, don't come at all and are always overcrowded. Imagine the same thing happening on the Motorway network: traffic lights not working, being stuck in lanes for ages, potholes the size of Essex, no traffic signs or lights when dark, narrow roads with Victorian cobbles. All hell would break lose, heads would roll (and quite probably literally too!), political careers ruined, reputations tarnished forever. As they say here: the world would be too small! Besides, any commuter in a train is a car less on the already overly congested roads

 

 

Sorry, but I cannot for one moment agree with your negative views on British railways. Certainly, some trains are overcrowded, some trains are cancelled, and some are late, but to assert as you seem to that this is the standard state is simply not true. Although 95%, if not more, of my rail travel has been in the UK, the most overcrowded train I have ever been on was in France, and the latest train I have ever been on was in Italy.

 

And in Britain we have for just about the last 10 years managed to avoid fatal rail accidents, which has not been the case in Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Switzerland, to name a few, some of which are regularly held up as having 'better' railways than Britain.

[APOLLO]

Stick monsieur "Henri" in and brick him up !!!!!!

 

 

Brit15

[62613]

The Thatcher Govt didn't privatize the railways.  It was John Major's Govt which did. 

 

 

Comparing fares is NOT a reflection of what people pay for the service. In Britain the passenger pays a greater proportion of the cost of the service he is using.  In much of the continent the taxpayers pay much of the fares via Govt subsidies.   Fares have risen much more than inflation so the the people who use the service are the ones that pay for it (although they are still actually subsidized by the taxpayer) .  Why should people who don't use the railway at all subsidize railway passengers?  Or the vast majority of it who use it sparingly subsidize whinging commuters?

On the same basis, why should my taxes pay for schools which neither my children or myself use anymore; or the NHS, which I use very rarely?

[rob D2]

I think the main thing in my mind is still terrorism.

 

I thought long and hard about juniors trip to Paris in the summer, and even got advice about the current ' threat level' from those in the know.

 

Even then, it didn't mean some nutcase with a truck would kill everybody in nice two weeks later.

 

The big thing to me, is the easy availability of AK47s and such like - Europe is awash with them leading to instant atrocity ( and no way for the citizens to fight back, but that's another debate veering towards politics ).

 

That's one big benefit of being an island I think.

[corneliuslundie]

One factor in a drop in Eurostar traffic is that there is no Euro 2016 now. Several Eurostar statements earlier in the year reported record advance bookings. Now things are back to normal, or possibly lower. So it is not wise to compare the third quarter of 2016 with the second.

But didn't the Channel Tunnel itself recently put out some figures about a in drop in traffic in both passengers and freight?

Jonathan

[John_Miles]

 

As for the whining commuters: they already pay through the nose and percentage-wise more then car commuters

I would be interested to see some figures to support this argument. From what little I know, commuters get relatively cheap travel to London compared t the rest of us. There was a news item a couple of years ago and if my arithmetic is correct, a commuter from Portsmouth to London on a season ticket paid around £16 per return trip. The last time I did a peak hours journey from Cardiff to London in was £145 and that would be at least 7 years ago. At a cost per mile commuters get relatively cheap travel.

[PhilH]

I think the main thing in my mind is still terrorism.

I thought long and hard about juniors trip to Paris in the summer, and even got advice about the current ' threat level' from those in the know.

Even then, it didn't mean some nutcase with a truck would kill everybody in nice two weeks later.

The big thing to me, is the easy availability of AK47s and such like - Europe is awash with them leading to instant atrocity ( and no way for the citizens to fight back, but that's another debate veering towards politics ).

That's one big benefit of being an island I think.

Surely though you can worry about everything if you wanted to. If you really thought about it would you ride a bike on the road, drive a car, go in an aeroplane or even cross a road, all of which statistically probably pose a bigger threat than those in your post?

[Bernard Lamb]

The shutte also seems to be very quiet at present, with very few Brits to be seen at several haunts in the vicinity of Calais.

There were about 6 couples in an hotel that has around 50 rooms. Normally on a regular October trip this hotel and other places have ben virtually full.

I don't think terrorism has much to do with the situation. It is down to the economic situation. Sadly I do not see things improving.

Bernard

[Fat Controller]

 

But didn't the Channel Tunnel itself recently pout out some figures about a in drop in traffic in both passengers and freight?

Jonathan

No- quite the contrary. Freight traffic +14% on budget. Tourist traffic +2%

Figures from a press release dated 19.10.2016.

[Fat Controller]

The shutte also seems to be very quiet at present, with very few Brits to be seen at several haunts in the vicinity of Calais.

There were about 6 couples in an hotel that has around 50 rooms. Normally on a regular October trip this hotel and other places have ben virtually full.

I don't think terrorism has much to do with the situation. It is down to the economic situation. Sadly I do not see things improving.

Bernard

I think the relative quiet in Calais is down to all the publicity about 'The Jungle'; people are understandably worried about finding extra passengers in their cars and so on.

The trains themselves have been as busy as normal, which leads me to think that people are going a bit further afield. This week has been half-term over a lot of the country, and we even had to put on an extra tourist train from France at 22:40 to clear the traffic before Saturday night works started