Proposed new competitor for Eurostar

[phil-b259]

On 31/07/2023 at 14:49, Ron Ron Ron said:

Only from personal experience, travelling from the UK to EU destinations over the last 18 months, I can't help feeling all this talk of increased passport checks and delays, has been somewhat overblown and exaggerated.

Last month we travelled from St. Pancras International, to Bordeaux, via Paris (Eurostar + TGV inOui).

The early Sunday morning train from St. Pancras was full and a long queue had formed long before the doors to check-in were opened.

Because there were hundreds of people already in the queue, when check-in commenced, it was a slow process to get as far as the security check and baggage x-ray stage.

That and the ready formed large queue were the real hold ups.

 

Once through that, passport checks were very quick, with no delay.

It certainly didn't appear to take any longer, with the extra requirement to stamp the passport, than it did pre-Brexit, when they just checked the passport was valid.

Returning to the UK is no change to what went before, except for the EU exit check, to ensure you hadn't overstayed your 90 days.

 

It's the same with flying (we have flown between the UK and various EU member countries, at least 6 times in the last 2 years).

Almost no difference, apart from having to have that physical stamp put on your passport.

 

p.s. Our return from Bordeaux to London, was via Lille, with a change of the scruffy old single deck TGV onto a much nicer Brussels to London Eurostar train.

Passport control at Lille was incredibly quick. No queue and no delay.

.

It depends on how you are travelling…

 

Pre-Brexit it was common (particularly at busy periods for French passport staff at Dover to simply wave people through in seconds on the basis (British car, 4 people in it and 4 British passports held up in the air by the driver.

 

Now there is a requirement for each of those passports to be physically picked up, from the driver,  opened opened and check for previous stamps by the border officer in their booth (to make sure you haven’t spent more than the 180 days a year you are allowed to be within be EU) then stamped  to record the date of entry on this occasion before being handed back. This now takes closer to a minute…..

 

It doesn’t take a genius to realise this teaks havoc at places like Dover does it? If you previous 5 booths could process say 4 cars every minute but can now only process one car then your throughput drops massively…

 

[adb968008]

11 minutes ago, phil-b259 said:

It depends on how you are travelling…

 

Pre-Brexit it was common (particularly at busy periods for French passport staff at Dover to simply wave people through in seconds on the basis (British car, 4 people in it and 4 British passports held up in the air by the driver.

 

Now there is a requirement for each of those passports to be physically picked up, from the driver,  opened opened and check for previous stamps by the border officer in their booth (to make sure you haven’t spent more than the 180 days a year you are allowed to be within be EU) then stamped  to record the date of entry on this occasion before being handed back. This now takes closer to a minute…..

 

It doesn’t take a genius to realise this teaks havoc at places like Dover does it? If you previous 5 booths could process say 4 cars every minute but can now only process one car then your throughput drops massively…

 

My daughters school trip the other week at Dover simply saw…

 

No issue with UK exit border, 2 french immigration boarded the bus, ask if there are any non-UK passports, and with a no answer, they simply counted people and passports.. then sent them on their way… no stamps, not even a look at the passports.

 

Return trip, UK insisted everyone deboarded the bus, and checked everyone.. unsurprisingly everyone was still British, but being moody teenagers were asking why they would want to be. French immigration seemed to be on lunchbreak and so drive straight through.

 

As far as the passport is concerned…the trip never happened.

Despite the rhetoric, it seems there is still some commonsense at the border, at least most of it.

 

I think it depends on the circumstance at the time, Ive seen worse.

 

 

Edited August 2, 2023 by adb968008

[adb968008]

2 hours ago, The Stationmaster said:

Don't forget two things are involved and both are costs to be carried by Eurostar.  First there is the security checks which need the right personnel and scanning equipment.  Secondly UK Border Force presumably still charge Eurostar for providing Immigration staff at their stations in England (if those stations are open for international passengers).  And third HMRC also require staff and facilities and I suspect that Eurostar might also have to pay for them.

 

So there is a lot of added cost the instant you start dealing with passengers who will travel through the Channel Tunnel in the shape  of (mandatory) security checks.  Then there is the hard EU border element requiring Immigration controls plus the Customs checks.  That's a lot more cost on top of handling internal UK passengers plus there is also a need to fully segregate them from anyone passing through the Channel Tunnel in either direction.

 

Chuck in an inadequate terminal capacity for international traffic at St Pancras and Eurostar are where they are with minimal options to get anywhere else.

The passenger is ultimately paying for it.

The question is how much does it cost ?

immigration shouldn't be a profit centre for the government, but equally shouldn't be underfunded.

as far as fitting it… it should already be there, it was “international” until covid, theres nothing new here.

 

My suspicion this is more of a political problem then a financial one.

Edited August 2, 2023 by adb968008

[Morello Cherry]

As someone who commutes regularly using Eurostar:

 

Eurostar is still better than Schipol or Heathrow.

 

None of the Eurostar terminals are large enough - whether that is London, Brussels, Rotterdam, Amsterdam.

 

Brussels has lost space to a massive rip off duty free shop. The rest of the waiting area is a dingy cave in keeping with the generally crappy character of Midi.

 

To me it seems like there is an issue with the timetable. The way it is set up is causing massive bunching of passengers in London - when you have a Paris - Brussels/Amsterdam - Paris set of departures in an hour. Essentially you have late comers for the first Paris train, combined with everyone for Brussels/Amsterdam, and then the people who think it is like Heathrow and turn up really early for the second Paris train.

 

Quite often you have three full train loads, waiting in an area that is just not big enough.

 

I find it quite interesting that it can be completely packed when I go through security/customs, but when it comes to boarding it is completely deserted.

 

There isn't enough space between the UK border controls and the French border controls, and the electronic gates seem to almost always be out of use. So this leads to massive queues/bunching, which goes back to the UK passport desks, which then goes to the security checks. But yeah, a couple more desks open would definitely speed things up.

 

What I don't quite understand is the following: loads of work was done in arrivals to separate space for passport control. Eurostar have (or are getting rid of) all the trains that come from destinations where there is no UK border control at boarding (ie Eurodisney, Ski trains, South of France trains).

 

I know that it is easy to blame 'the French' but certainly at Schipol post covid, things have been a nightmare with queues because of loss of security staff. When I came through there a couple of weeks back, I was told 'oh today is a good day, the queue yesterday was an hour and a half to get through passport control [to exit the Netherlands]'.

 

God knows where a competitor would go to or from? Ebbsfleet? Stratford? Maybe - perhaps to Lille where there are decent connections for the SNCF network (more so than Calais). But the issue of the border remains and that there just don't seem to be the staff in either the UK or France.

 

TBH - I suspect that the terminal at St Pancras could expand - but it would almost certainly be into space which is currently retail space and we all know that this is the last kind of space that would be given up to passengers.

 

IMO St Pancras terminal needs a complete rethink and redesign and I think that there needs to be an approach similar to that taken at Heathrow when it came to renovating one of the terminals (2?). Close it, send all the passengers somewhere else for 18 months temporarily (HS2 at Euston/Stratford 'International'/Ebbsfleet (with a St Pancras - Ebbsfleet shuttle) and rebuild it to make it suitable for post-Brexit travel. However, I suspect that the easier choice of retrenchment to London-Paris, London-Brussels, will be the option of the day.

[The Stationmaster]

2 hours ago, adb968008 said:

Plenty of space at the gates at platform level for a few chairs, desk and a scanner thats downstairs.

 

how much space do they need ?, considering passports were already check3d by Uk immigration before boarding, this is merely “red/green channel customs”, so 99% just go straight out. The coralling point for sniffer dogs, etc is dead easy too.. its the railings between the two power cars.

 

this is taken from the glass, that makes the sterile area, theres as much space again and more behind the camera.

 

This is a station exit, designed to be a station exit, that is not being used as a station exit.

 

Theres more space for customs here than at London City Airport and thats way more people, and continual streams.

 

space isnt the issue, I maintain its political.

 

 

Surely arrivals aren't a problem anyway?  There are - as you say - UK passport checks in Paris and I understand the system works quite well there.  There is of course the security check at Paris as well so theres no need to check arrivals at this And.and I understand from my son - who last travelled by Eurostar a couple of weeks back that that is still the case - you simply walk off - as has long been the case..

 

Don't forget that arriving and departing passengers have to be segregated  and St Pancras was designed that way.  Its problem is the lack of room to handle outbound passengers, very different fromWaterloo International which was designed to handle 3.200 outbound and 3,200 inbound passengers per hour, i.e. 4 full trains departing and 4 full trains arriving

[The Stationmaster]

On 01/08/2023 at 20:24, adb968008 said:

Would it be too simple a solution for passengers to egress at the platform ends of St P, like in Brussels and Paris ?

Then use the undercroft to expand the waiting area ?.. much of it on arrivals is waste space anyway.

They can, and some do!

[adb968008]

9 minutes ago, The Stationmaster said:

Surely arrivals aren't a problem anyway?  There are - as you say - UK passport checks in Paris and I understand the system works quite well there.  There is of course the security check at Paris as well so theres no need to check arrivals at this And.and I understand from my son - who last travelled by Eurostar a couple of weeks back that that is still the case - you simply walk off - as has long been the case..

 

Don't forget that arriving and departing passengers have to be segregated  and St Pancras was designed that way.  Its problem is the lack of room to handle outbound passengers, very different fromWaterloo International which was designed to handle 3.200 outbound and 3,200 inbound passengers per hour, i.e. 4 full trains departing and 4 full trains arriving

I think my suggestion got lost in the noise…

 

beneath the platforms the under croft is split into two… arrivals and departures.

arrivals is a waste of space… literally an empty room.

that corrals into a tiny corridor through customs and into the station area,

 

why not move arrivals to the upper platform ?

Then use the arrivals space as an extended departure lounge ?

(ie move passengers in reverse direction).

make it even simpler.. 1 side Paris, the other side Brussels for checkin.

 

and arrivals just exits to the main concourse platform level.

Edited August 2, 2023 by adb968008

[The Stationmaster]

46 minutes ago, Morello Cherry said:

As someone who commutes regularly using Eurostar:

 

Eurostar is still better than Schipol or Heathrow.

 

None of the Eurostar terminals are large enough - whether that is London, Brussels, Rotterdam, Amsterdam.

 

Brussels has lost space to a massive rip off duty free shop. The rest of the waiting area is a dingy cave in keeping with the generally crappy character of Midi.

 

To me it seems like there is an issue with the timetable. The way it is set up is causing massive bunching of passengers in London - when you have a Paris - Brussels/Amsterdam - Paris set of departures in an hour. Essentially you have late comers for the first Paris train, combined with everyone for Brussels/Amsterdam, and then the people who think it is like Heathrow and turn up really early for the second Paris train.

 

Quite often you have three full train loads, waiting in an area that is just not big enough.

 

I find it quite interesting that it can be completely packed when I go through security/customs, but when it comes to boarding it is completely deserted.

 

There isn't enough space between the UK border controls and the French border controls, and the electronic gates seem to almost always be out of use. So this leads to massive queues/bunching, which goes back to the UK passport desks, which then goes to the security checks. But yeah, a couple more desks open would definitely speed things up.

 

What I don't quite understand is the following: loads of work was done in arrivals to separate space for passport control. Eurostar have (or are getting rid of) all the trains that come from destinations where there is no UK border control at boarding (ie Eurodisney, Ski trains, South of France trains).

 

I know that it is easy to blame 'the French' but certainly at Schipol post covid, things have been a nightmare with queues because of loss of security staff. When I came through there a couple of weeks back, I was told 'oh today is a good day, the queue yesterday was an hour and a half to get through passport control [to exit the Netherlands]'.

 

God knows where a competitor would go to or from? Ebbsfleet? Stratford? Maybe - perhaps to Lille where there are decent connections for the SNCF network (more so than Calais). But the issue of the border remains and that there just don't seem to be the staff in either the UK or France.

 

TBH - I suspect that the terminal at St Pancras could expand - but it would almost certainly be into space which is currently retail space and we all know that this is the last kind of space that would be given up to passengers.

 

IMO St Pancras terminal needs a complete rethink and redesign and I think that there needs to be an approach similar to that taken at Heathrow when it came to renovating one of the terminals (2?). Close it, send all the passengers somewhere else for 18 months temporarily (HS2 at Euston/Stratford 'International'/Ebbsfleet (with a St Pancras - Ebbsfleet shuttle) and rebuild it to make it suitable for post-Brexit travel. However, I suspect that the easier choice of retrenchment to London-Paris, London-Brussels, will be the option of the day.

The problem isn't the timetable - it's the layout of St Pancras.  The timetable has to be built around flights of two trains through the Tunnel and there are  basically two flights per hour available - that is it.  Alter that and the trans will have to run more slowly through teh Tunnel - if paths are available among the Shuttles and they'll miss existing paths in France and Belgium (and beyind when that is needed).

 

Waterloo International was designed around that starting point - in fact the whole timetable and terminal operation had to be very carefully integrated and that included the turnround time at Waterloo which was an essential part of making the plan work.

 

When we saw the early plans for St Pancras a number of us were - to put it mildly - horrified because we just couldn't see how it would work.  The area to deal with outward passengers was too small; the entrance/exit arrangements to/from the platforms were insufficient; and worst od all the train servicing access to the platforms was terrible.   We were called all sorts of names for saying the place wouldn't work but exactly what we forecast very rapidly happened as trains could not be turned round quickly enough - the 35 minutes originally allowed (from train arrival to same train departing) soon increased to over 40 minutes and that, so I understand, subsequently further increased.  One of the consequences is that some inward trains have to depart to Stratford once they've unloaded to release a platform for a later arrival or a train coming in from Stratford to form a departure - and there aren't really enough platforms anyway should things go even slightly  off plan.

 

The only real advantage St Pancras has over Waterloo is that it has a double track approacjh instead of a single line although in some respects - apart from moving empty trains - that doesn't matter because of the other features that form the shape of the trainplan.   The odd thing about the whole British end of the Eurostar story is that in its Waterloo phase there was a really well planned superb terminal arrangement but what in all honesty was a second rate route for very high speed trains.  Now there is a really good very high speed route terminating at a less than ideal, and definotely not first rate, terminal.

[DavidB-AU]

On 30/07/2023 at 18:45, black and decker boy said:

There appear to be 22 daily direct flights from London’s airports to Paris so that suggests plenty of potential travellers.

 

Mainly the leisure market. About 75% of business travellers use Eurostar.

 

Where else but Paris Nord? Marne-la-Vallée–Chessy has the required border control facilities and RER connections to Paris proper.

 

 

 

[The Stationmaster]

10 hours ago, adb968008 said:

I think my suggestion got lost in the noise…

 

beneath the platforms the under croft is split into two… arrivals and departures.

arrivals is a waste of space… literally an empty room.

that corrals into a tiny corridor through customs and into the station area,

 

why not move arrivals to the upper platform ?

Then use the arrivals space as an extended departure lounge ?

(ie move passengers in reverse direction).

make it even simpler.. 1 side Paris, the other side Brussels for checkin.

 

and arrivals just exits to the main concourse platform level.

Of it's all moved up top that will mean erecting buildings for HMRC use plus occasional use by 'another concern'.  The Customs presence was nothing to do with EU membership or otherwise as they had a strong - but relatively discreet - presence at Waterloo (and a very high success rateI..  

[jjb1970]

Ultimately it's like a lot of things, demand and supply need to be in a reasonable balance to maintain throughput and avoid unnecessary queues. Having to check passports and visas is hardly a new thing, if anything it's the global norm. It's not just the UK, having been through several EU airports over the last couple of years it seems a common problem while Washington Dulles would put me off ever going there for a holiday even though I love Washington DC.

Edited August 3, 2023 by jjb1970

[phil-b259]

14 hours ago, adb968008 said:

I think my suggestion got lost in the noise…

 

beneath the platforms the under croft is split into two… arrivals and departures.

arrivals is a waste of space… literally an empty room.

that corrals into a tiny corridor through customs and into the station area,

 

why not move arrivals to the upper platform ?

Then use the arrivals space as an extended departure lounge ?

(ie move passengers in reverse direction).

make it even simpler.. 1 side Paris, the other side Brussels for checkin.

 

and arrivals just exits to the main concourse platform level.

 

Your suggestion has 'not got lost in the noise' - its a very sensible idea.

 

....BUT....

 

There was no reason why Waterloo International couldn't have been designed to allow arriving passenger to simply walk off the end of the international platforms and into the Domestic station either- yet the station was deliberately designed to not facilitate that. 

 

That says to me the UK Government are adamant that any international arrivals must process through what amounts to a surveillance corridor* before allowing them to finally escape into the UK proper even if they have been checked upon departure. Whether that is for customs or border force needs I'm not sure.

 

Given there were several instances in the early days of persons buying a ticket to Lille (Eurostar departures from Paris were integrated into the TGV one serving that city - unlike the Brits the French were quite happy for domestic and international passengers to mix) but not alighting there while destroying any paperwork in the bogs so as to try and sneak into the UK you can see why a Government wanting to look 'tough' in matters of migration quite likes kettling incoming arrivals....

 

The fact that the nature of St Pancras means its not viable to have a massive trench in front of the international platforms changes nothing if the official stance is that passengers need additional processing upon arrival. And given the anti migrant hysteria pedalled by the right wing press I don't see any political party being wiiling to change that (even if the reason is more customs than border security related)!

 

 

*you don't think its just to make things awkward do you - much like they used to (and might still) get cars arriving off the ferry to drive through an apparently empty shed with humps in it and look to see if there was any unusual suspension behaviour that might indicate smuggling, the same still happens in airports and at St Pancras - the artificial bottlenecks give ample time to spot anything deemed suspicious

 

Edited August 3, 2023 by phil-b259

[ruggedpeak]

Having been involved in the management of St Pancras facilities and those at other international hubs I concur with Stationmaster and others that the site is sub-optimal for Eurostar in terms of passenger processing/handling. It suffers from the same problem as many airports (Brussels is mentioned above), that the 'passengers' are not actually viewed as people who's primary role is to board transport but as 'customers' for retailers. Travel is incidental to squeezing money out of a temporarily captive audience. When the site is also confined this just exacerbates the situation.

 

IMHO the worst example of this is Stansted airport, little more than a gaudy shopping centre with some aircraft parking. London City on the other hand achieves the primary travel objectives, including funnelling travellers etc in a very confined space effectively and efficiently. LCY is probably a good comparator for St Pancras of how to process punters in a limited space. But LCY's entire focus is on quick, effective travel and not retail.

[woodenhead]

To me, the whole Chunnel and Eurostar thing was a symbol of European co-operation, cementing the UK into Europe with a fixed link.

 

So the design of St Pancras did not need to facilitate the complicated border controls we now see, it was not anticipated at the time we would exit the EU so acrimoniously and lets face it I don't think any of us really expected to leave.  It was a small group of politicians (on both sides of the house) who didn't like it and an even smaller number who held a PM hostage to a vote and then ran away with untruths leading us into oblivion which yet may even see the break up of the UK.

 

 

[phil-b259]

1 hour ago, ruggedpeak said:

Having been involved in the management of St Pancras facilities and those at other international hubs I concur with Stationmaster and others that the site is sub-optimal for Eurostar in terms of passenger processing/handling. It suffers from the same problem as many airports (Brussels is mentioned above), that the 'passengers' are not actually viewed as people who's primary role is to board transport but as 'customers' for retailers. Travel is incidental to squeezing money out of a temporarily captive audience. When the site is also confined this just exacerbates the situation.

 

IMHO the worst example of this is Stansted airport, little more than a gaudy shopping centre with some aircraft parking. London City on the other hand achieves the primary travel objectives, including funnelling travellers etc in a very confined space effectively and efficiently. LCY is probably a good comparator for St Pancras of how to process punters in a limited space. But LCY's entire focus is on quick, effective travel and not retail.

 

LCY is NOT a good comparison!

 

Unlike Eurostar (whose trains carry around 8009 - 900) people at a time, the planes which can use LCY have to be small ones with low passenger payloads. That in turn means that the numbers of passengers which needing processing for each flight are small and with careful consideration put to takeoff / landings its possible to stagger the flows so that the numbers actually needing to be in the departure lounge area or pass through security at any time never get very large.

 

Put it this way - if Eurostar was dealing with more trains but each train contained no more than 200 folk then the facilities available at St Pancras would be absolutely fine.

Edited August 3, 2023 by phil-b259

[Michael Hodgson]

On 31/07/2023 at 14:33, Ron Ron Ron said:

Wasn't the recent problem with passport delays at Dover, due to the French border service not providing enough staff, rather than being an issue with the UK border force?

.

As I understood it the Government's main problem with channel crossing is the people who don't bother to go through Customs and Immigration, and who don't use the ferries trains or airlines anyway.

[woodenhead]

10 minutes ago, Michael Hodgson said:

As I understood it the Government's main problem with channel crossing is the people who don't bother to go through Customs and Immigration, and who don't use the ferries trains or airlines anyway.

I thought that was just because of the border queues for Eurostar or the Ferry so they use their own or borrow a boat to save everyone time.

[Michael Hodgson]

49 minutes ago, phil-b259 said:

Put it this way - if Eurostar was dealing with more trains but each train contained no more than 200 folk then the facilities available at St Pancras would be absolutely fine.

So we should upgrade from Class 373/4 sets to a large fleet of Sprinters or maybe Pacers?

That would show Johnny Foreigner what we really think of the EU!

[ruggedpeak]

43 minutes ago, phil-b259 said:

 

LCY is NOT a good comparison!

 

Unlike Eurostar (whose trains carry around 8009 - 900) people at a time, the planes which can use LCY have to be small ones with low passenger payloads. That in turn means that the numbers of passengers which needing processing for each flight are small and with careful consideration put to takeoff / landings its possible to stagger the flows so that the numbers actually needing to be in the departure lounge area or pass through security at any time never get very large.

 

Put it this way - if Eurostar was dealing with more trains but each train contained no more than 200 folk then the facilities available at St Pancras would be absolutely fine.

I disagree, although the planes have smaller capacity at busy times they land close together and the distance from runway to terminal is incredibly short, so the volume of people moving through at any given time is quite substantial.
 

With a BA Embraer having almost 100 people on board, and the Airbus and Avro RJ having over 100 person capacity and a maximum permitted 34 aircraft movements per hour that's say 3400+ people going through LCY per hour at full capacity. The airport operates for 15.5 hours per weekday, so at full capacity that's over 50k people per day. Eurostar I believe operate c.25 trains day, each carrying say 900 people, that's 22.5k people per day.

 

So even allowing for the smaller aircraft that use LCY, it is a useful comparator for St Pancras. Irrespective, LCY is a good example of how to manage an international terminus in a small space and subject to significant constraints.

 

[ruggedpeak]

1 hour ago, woodenhead said:

To me, the whole Chunnel and Eurostar thing was a symbol of European co-operation, cementing the UK into Europe with a fixed link.

 

So the design of St Pancras did not need to facilitate the complicated border controls we now see, it was not anticipated at the time we would exit the EU so acrimoniously and lets face it I don't think any of us really expected to leave.  It was a small group of politicians (on both sides of the house) who didn't like it and an even smaller number who held a PM hostage to a vote and then ran away with untruths leading us into oblivion which yet may even see the break up of the UK.

The Chunnel is and remains a symbol of European and primarily Anglo-French co-operation. The existence or otherwise of the EU doesn't change the fact that the Chunnel was built and Eurostar services operate.

 

However even if Brexit had not happened St Pancras is arguably not fit for purpose for what it is supposed to do given the size and provision of facilities etc. Brexit simply compounds an existing problem from poor design and planning.

[phil-b259]

19 minutes ago, ruggedpeak said:

 

With a BA Embraer having almost 100 people on board, and the Airbus and Avro RJ having over 100 person capacity and a maximum permitted 34 aircraft movements per hour that's say 3400+ people going through LCY per hour at full capacity. The airport operates for 15.5 hours per weekday, so at full capacity that's over 50k people per day. Eurostar I believe operate c.25 trains day, each carrying say 900 people, that's 22.5k people per day.

 

 

 

 

The key question is how many of those 3400 people are squished together at any given time. If the flow of passengers out to the aircraft matches the volumes coming through the check in gates / security then the amount of 'holding space' needed is relatively little and you don't get backlog as congestion inside slows the rate of processing, nor do you have to find lots of space to stack people as they wait their turn to board the planes.

 

I repeat, if Eurostar operated frequent (but shorter) trains then it wouldn't have a problem as you would be continually emptying the departure areas making space for fresh people arriving from security (plus you could increase the space allocated to security checks).

 

I

 

Edited August 3, 2023 by phil-b259

[woodenhead]

7 minutes ago, ruggedpeak said:

The Chunnel is and remains a symbol of European and primarily Anglo-French co-operation. The existence or otherwise of the EU doesn't change the fact that the Chunnel was built and Eurostar services operate.

 

However even if Brexit had not happened St Pancras is arguably not fit for purpose for what it is supposed to do given the size and provision of facilities etc. Brexit simply compounds an existing problem from poor design and planning.

Or Eurostar knew exactly what they were doing to stifle any competition - if there is no platform space or passenger waiting accomodation then companies like DB or new starts are going to find it difficult to find slots, rather like airlines buying up airport landing slots....

[phil-b259]

19 minutes ago, ruggedpeak said:

 

So even allowing for the smaller aircraft that use LCY, it is a useful comparator for St Pancras. Irrespective, LCY is a good example of how to manage an international terminus in a small space and subject to significant constraints.

 

 

It is a pretty meaningless comparison - LCY is built around a frequent but low volume operation while Eurostar (due to the need to fit in with CT train paths and infrastructure constraints) needs to operate huge trains at a relatively sparse frequency (by domestic standards).

 

If you want to compare airports you should be looking at ones which regulatory have to handle large aircraft departing at relatively low frequencies - these will need to be very different from LCY to function effectively

[phil-b259]

37 minutes ago, woodenhead said:

Or Eurostar knew exactly what they were doing to stifle any competition - if there is no platform space or passenger waiting accomodation then companies like DB or new starts are going to find it difficult to find slots, rather like airlines buying up airport landing slots....

 

Please remember that Eurostar is not the owner of the infrastructure nor did it have much input into the design of St Pancras - which was done without the involvement of those who were familiar with how Waterloo worked and was largely about making it look wonderful rather than how it might function from a railway perspective.

 

As such Eurostar are not in a position to 'stifle' competition - nor do they 'own' the international departure / arrivals areas of St Pancras and could easily be forced to share if necessary.

 

Instead competition is stiffed by:-

(1) The Anglo-French Governmental commission placing stringent restrictions on train length for any train operating through the tunnel limiting the supply of suitable trains

(2) The limited number of train paths on the LGV network in northern France and the ability of those to work with the paths Eurotunnel provide

(3) The limited number of paths that Eurotunnel is prepared to sell to international passenger train operators to the determent of its own shuttle service

(4) The UK Home Office which demands strict separation of departing and arriving passengers, mandates extensive border controls MUST take place at stations etc which makes the railway operation of St Pancras (particularly platform dwell times) very inefficient, not to mention overcrowded.

 

Now if you did away with the shops which line the Eurostar departures area externally and adopted the French method of exiting the platforms (people just walk past the buffer stops thus freeing up the ex arrivals area for extra departure facilities) then you could ease the bottlenecks quite substantially. However the former would no doubt be unpopular with the state-owned railway property development company that owns St Pancras while the later would need a seismic shift in UK border policy 

 

 

Edited August 3, 2023 by phil-b259

[lmsforever]

17 hours ago, Morello Cherry said:

As someone who commutes regularly using Eurostar:

 

Eurostar is still better than Schipol or Heathrow.

 

None of the Eurostar terminals are large enough - whether that is London, Brussels, Rotterdam, Amsterdam.

 

Brussels has lost space to a massive rip off duty free shop. The rest of the waiting area is a dingy cave in keeping with the generally crappy character of Midi.

 

To me it seems like there is an issue with the timetable. The way it is set up is causing massive bunching of passengers in London - when you have a Paris - Brussels/Amsterdam - Paris set of departures in an hour. Essentially you have late comers for the first Paris train, combined with everyone for Brussels/Amsterdam, and then the people who think it is like Heathrow and turn up really early for the second Paris train.

 

Quite often you have three full train loads, waiting in an area that is just not big enough.

 

I find it quite interesting that it can be completely packed when I go through security/customs, but when it comes to boarding it is completely deserted.

 

There isn't enough space between the UK border controls and the French border controls, and the electronic gates seem to almost always be out of use. So this leads to massive queues/bunching, which goes back to the UK passport desks, which then goes to the security checks. But yeah, a couple more desks open would definitely speed things up.

 

What I don't quite understand is the following: loads of work was done in arrivals to separate space for passport control. Eurostar have (or are getting rid of) all the trains that come from destinations where there is no UK border control at boarding (ie Eurodisney, Ski trains, South of France trains).

 

I know that it is easy to blame 'the French' but certainly at Schipol post covid, things have been a nightmare with queues because of loss of security staff. When I came through there a couple of weeks back, I was told 'oh today is a good day, the queue yesterday was an hour and a half to get through passport control [to exit the Netherlands]'.

 

God knows where a competitor would go to or from? Ebbsfleet? Stratford? Maybe - perhaps to Lille where there are decent connections for the SNCF network (more so than Calais). But the issue of the border remains and that there just don't seem to be the staff in either the UK or France.

 

TBH - I suspect that the terminal at St Pancras could expand - but it would almost certainly be into space which is currently retail space and we all know that this is the last kind of space that would be given up to passengers.

 

IMO St Pancras terminal needs a complete rethink and redesign and I think that there needs to be an approach similar to that taken at Heathrow when it came to renovating one of the terminals (2?). Close it, send all the passengers somewhere else for 18 months temporarily (HS2 at Euston/Stratford 'International'/Ebbsfleet (with a St Pancras - Ebbsfleet shuttle) and rebuild it to make it suitable for post-Brexit travel. However, I suspect that the easier choice of retrenchment to London-Paris, London-Brussels, will be the option of the day.

Good to see a report of what it is really like  thanks