Frankfurt to London ICE-3 Test

[AMJ]

Whatever any operater decides to do essentially the more that we use it and or promote the idea of travelling by that route to everyone then they will look at additions.

 

Just like Attercliffe & Brightside stations in Sheffield (these were replaced by the modern Meadowhall) use it or lose it.

[The Stationmaster]

Mike, you have highlighted a few of the reasons why Regional services from cities north of London would not be a practical or economic proposition.

There are other obstacles too, but the biggest obstacle is that there isn't a sufficient market to sustain through trains.

 

The largest single UK market for travel to the near "Continent" is London and the SE. The existing services from there to Paris and Brussels have been very successful (less so in the case of Brussels), offering a number of daily services (frequency) that although limited, is sufficiently attractive to both business and leisure travellers.

With the best will in the world, the next nearest city that could muster a reasonable demand, Birmingham, is a far smaller market and would struggle to fill one train a day to Paris. Not an attractive option to most travellers, particularly business travellers who are the majority on such a city pairing.

The prospects for elsewhere in the UK are virtually nil.

 

However you mention connections, with regard to travel from London to other near "Continental" destinations and I believe that is where limited opportunities lie.

The same holds true for UK regional rail connections to those near destinations, namely good connections.

We already have some of that in place. Towns and Cities all along the MML and ECML are already connected to HS1 within the St. Pancras/Kings Cross terminus. Unfortunately connecting from other London mainline routes isn't as convenient. Whatever the Pro's and Con's of the HS2 proposal, providing a direct connection to London-Continent services are a useful benefit.

 

On the mainland side of things, I can only see limited scope for growth beyond existing direct routes. DB will no doubt be looking primarily at London-Frankfurt and offering connections to their other services. It's very welcome, but I don't think we should be getting carried away with the notion that there will be new routes and services going here there and everywhere.

.

 

 

I think you're spot on there Ron, folk shouldn't be misled by the political (small 'p') implications of Regional Eurostar or ENS and might care to note that in some cases the 'estimated market' figures were produced after the decision had been made to serve certain places

 

What it comes down to in practical terms is a mix of things already mentioned in this discussion and particularly the passenger toleration of a need to change trains. Many of us who are long used to rail travel think little or nothing of having to change en-route, especially if we know the route and are familiar with the stations involved. But that is far from the case with the 'wider market' for whom travel is not so much an enjoyable adventure as something to be tolerated.

 

Just look what happened at the time of the ash cloud earlier this year, someone interviewed in Venice said he'd been told there was a train from Milan to Paris but he was in Venice so that was no use to him! Direct air travel tends to mean many people are unfamiliar with basic geography, let alone with railway geography.

 

But having said that Lille and Brussels, especially the latter, offer excellent connectional opportunities and even Paris is not the end of the earth as a cross-city option (Gare De L'Est arrive to Gare du Nord depart, including changing the Eurostar ticket from a Brussels departure to a Paris one, in roundly 50 minutes - without even running - on one occasion).

 

So the principal 'near Europe' markets might well be exploitable - the largest, still I believe, is Amsterdam while Koln is also fairly good although with seasonal peaks. DBAG would probably be likely to push the Rhine Valley tourist area as it could be a simple connection at Koln or even served by a Frankfurt service. Things may well have changed as I'm looking back a decade when I talk of their 'interest' but then it was in connectional traffic out of the UK based very much on planning around a London-Brussels-Koln-Rhine Valley-Basle core. Regrettably their attempts to develop a timetable based on that fell on stony ground in some other places. But might it perhaps not be unlikely that their middle managers who were pushing that back then could well be their senior managers now?

[chrisf]

There is an article in the latest issue of RAIL - on the news-stands on Tuesday, folks - which asserts that test running of an ICE through the Channel Tunnel is likely in October and that said ICE will be on display at St Pancras.

 

Chris

[Rhydgaled]

So the principal 'near Europe' markets might well be exploitable - the largest, still I believe, is Amsterdam while Koln is also fairly good although with seasonal peaks.

This returns me to the question of whether Eurostars have the necessary equipment to run to Amsterdam, or Thalys trains that required to run into London? (although Thalys is dependant on decisions regarding the tunnel regulations).

[The Stationmaster]

This returns me to the question of whether Eurostars have the necessary equipment to run to Amsterdam, or Thalys trains that required to run into London? (although Thalys is dependant on decisions regarding the tunnel regulations).

 

 

No, no.

 

Eurostars cannot run on current NS ATP kit because they have a ribbon speedo but might be ok once everything is 'Euro-harmonised-interoperable' (by which time they'll probably have been replaced on age grounds anyway).

 

Thalys units have not got the necessary (as it stands at present) safety fitment to come though the Tunnel carrying passengers and in any case SNCF/SNCB already have units which are perfectly capable of coming through the Tunnel so I doubt they would be interested in taking Thalys sets off their 'proper' PBKA workings to rebuild them for Tunnel compliance.

[Fenman]

A nice piece in today's Guardian about DB's plans:

 

http://www.guardian....rain-high-speed

 

Paul

[Kris]

A reasonably written article that one. I like the sound of the prices quoted.

[DY444]

No, no.

 

Eurostars cannot run on current NS ATP kit because they have a ribbon speedo but might be ok once everything is 'Euro-harmonised-interoperable' (by which time they'll probably have been replaced on age grounds anyway).

 

Most of the Eurostar powercars have had their ribbon speedometers replaced by LED numerical displays.

[frobisher]

A reasonably written article that one. I like the sound of the prices quoted.

 

Yup, it does fill me with quite a bit of hope for the service (and London-Cologne is a trip I will need to be doing at least once a year from now on, shame it's not likely to start before 2013 )

[Ron Ron Ron]

A reasonably written article that one. I like the sound of the prices quoted.

Fares like that are almost certainly uneconomical.

When DB are finally part or fully privatised, fares may have to increase.

 

 

[Fat Controller]

Fares like that are almost certainly uneconomical.

When DB are finally part or fully privatised, fares may have to increase.

The prices quoted would be for non-exchangeable, non-refundable tickets- prices for any degree of flexibility will be considerably more, as is the case for E*, railways in general, and the airlines from whose pricing models these things are derived.

Regarding Amsterdam- I believe any train working over the NS HSL has to be fitted with ETCS-compatible systems, as the line isn't equipped with any other signalling system.

[Fenman]

Fares like that are almost certainly uneconomical.

 

Doesn't it depend what you mean by "economical"?

 

Seats on a train, like those on a plane, are highly perishable. The train is going to depart whether or not that seat is occupied so, just like airlines, railway companies need to calculate the actual cost of filling the seat (some infinitesimal increase in fuel consumption, I guess, plus an even smaller bit of administration) and, as long as the cheap ticket costs more than that, it is "economical" for the railway to fill it (assuming, of course, it would not have sold to a walk-up customer paying a premium fare, or that there are so many last-minute cheap fares that people stop buying more expensive ones in advance, etc). Yield management is now more science than art.

 

Having written that, I find it frustrating as a consumer -- companies advertise their lowest fares, and then more often than not construct their websites so you can't search for them directly.

 

Paul

[The Stationmaster]

Most of the Eurostar powercars have had their ribbon speedometers replaced by LED numerical displays.

 

 

However - unless it has changed very substantially - Dutch ATP requires a dial type presentation. Now presumably that might be able to be handled in a different format, and in any case would become academic when/if ERTMS becames a fully international reality, but in the past it has always been probably the biggest technical obstacle to running a Eurostar in Holland.

 

As far as pricing is concerned there is lot of truth in the axiom 'the market will decide'. And Amsterdam and Frankfurt are two very different sorts of market - with, probably, Cologne lying somewhere between the two in marketing terms as well as geographically.

Amsterdam is very much 'leisure' market/optional travel and is thus going to be very price sensitive for a lot of the potential traffic.

 

By contrast London - Frankfurt has long been seen as more a business traveller market able to sustain higher fares provided the travel product is right. There is not much lower price optional market but that does exist steadily between London and Cologne. DB have been keen to develop the London-Frankfurt corridor for a long time and it has always been lurking somewhere or other in their business planning and strategy.

 

They have, in effect, been let down (and at one time really felt very let down) by the poor way in which connections between Eurostar and Thalys have turned out at Brussels compared with the original plan and the hopes they had for developing traffic via that connection - something in which a large chunk of Eurostar never really had much interest, alas. In my view Eurostar will lose out on an important market area if/once DB get the foot through the door of the Tunnel.

 

And while airport access at Cologne has, I understand, improved considerably carefully planned conections at Brussels occasionally made it possible for the rail traveller to manage London-Cologne quicker than by air, even before the Belgian and British high speed lines opened. Now it should be quicker and simpler - but it isn't, because of the Brussels situation.

[45669]

Much as I would welcome the opportunity of travelling from London to Germany without having to change trains in Paris or Brussels, how can I guarentee that when I ask for a window seat, the computer will actually give me a seat by a window made of glass?

 

On my last trip to Germany earlier this year, every train that I was booked onto except one had a blank plastic wall where I was expecting the window to be.

 

Am I the only person in Europe that likes to look out of the window and admire the scenery when travelling by train? The annoying thing is that almost all of the people that did have a seat by a glass window had their noses in books, magazines or laptop computers and did not even give the passing scenery a second glance!

[The Stationmaster]

Much as I would welcome the opportunity of travelling from London to Germany without having to change trains in Paris or Brussels, how can I guarentee that when I ask for a window seat, the computer will actually give me a seat by a window made of glass?

 

On my last trip to Germany earlier this year, every train that I was booked onto except one had a blank plastic wall where I was expecting the window to be.

 

Am I the only person in Europe that likes to look out of the window and admire the scenery when travelling by train? The annoying thing is that almost all of the people that did have a seat by a glass window had their noses in books, magazines or laptop computers and did not even give the passing scenery a second glance!

 

I think that 'non-window' seats are the biggest curse of modern trains - everywhere.

[Football Special]

Much as I would welcome the opportunity of travelling from London to Germany without having to change trains in Paris or Brussels, how can I guarentee that when I ask for a window seat, the computer will actually give me a seat by a window made of glass?

 

On my last trip to Germany earlier this year, every train that I was booked onto except one had a blank plastic wall where I was expecting the window to be.

 

Am I the only person in Europe that likes to look out of the window and admire the scenery when travelling by train? The annoying thing is that almost all of the people that did have a seat by a glass window had their noses in books, magazines or laptop computers and did not even give the passing scenery a second glance!

 

Earlier this month, I travelled on a Thalys service from Bruxelles to Cologne and an ICE from Frankfurt to Dresden. I booked the tickets through Deutsche Bahn, asked them for a window seat on both services, and they had no problem allocating one to me. I even asked for a seat with a table and they were happy to give me one. The only thing they couldn't do was book me a seat facing forward. This, in the end, wasn't a problem as my seat on the Thalys service faced forward and all I had to do on the ICE was move to the other side of the table when the train reversed at Leipzig.

 

It's also worth pointing out that you don't need a seat reservation to travel on ICE services.

 

You're not the only one who liks to admire the scenery from the window. The ICE journey I mentioned above took about 5 hours and I spent a lot of it looking out of the window; if it had been a journey on a route I'd been on before, I probably would have been reading a newspaper.

[Ron Ron Ron]

There might be a good business case for doing away with windows altogether.

They could be seen as an unnecessary expense in both construction costs and in the extra weight they add to a train (green issues?), not to mention maintenance.

They don't add any value to the product at all.

A veritable negative on every balance sheet from design through the train vehicle's whole life operation.

 

 

Heaven forbid !

[NGT6 1315]

On my last trip to Germany earlier this year, every train that I was booked onto except one had a blank plastic wall where I was expecting the window to be.

 

In some cases this has to do with the seating having been changed by way of a refurbishment - which means that the seating arrangement did fit the window arrangement originally, but no longer does so afterwards. I agree that this can be annoying, though.

[Glorious NSE]

There might be a good business case for doing away with windows altogether.

They could be seen as an unnecessary expense in both construction costs and in the extra weight they add to a train (green issues?),

 

But at the expense of increased electricity use for lighting?

 

They don't add any value to the product at all.

 

Possibly so on some routes, but any route that markets itself on being "scenic" would I think have a problem with it's product?

[Kris]

But at the expense of increased electricity use for lighting?

 

Given that the lights seem to be on all the time this would not be an additional cost. It would make it more interesting if the lights failed though.

[Glorious NSE]

Some stock has different lighting levels where it has some lights on in a coach (useful on lines with tunnels!) but not all lights

 

 

[Edwin_m]

The new Metrolink trams do something that is common in Europe, there is a light sensor somewhere near the front that works quickly enough to turn the lights on before it gets dark as the tram goes into a tunnel.

 

If you didn't have windows there might be more elbow room inside the train, as without the need for structural members round the windows the sides could be thinner.

[Oakydoke]

But at the expense of increased electricity use for lighting?

Given that the lights seem to be on all the time this would not be an additional cost.

 

New very low energy lighting will cost almost nothing to run.

It could even be powered from wind turbines, solar panels built-in to the roof and regenerative braking, backed up by the primary train power system.

Alternatively, the conditions of carriage could be amended to require all passengers to turn up wearing a Miner's helmet.

[Glorious NSE]

Alternatively, the conditions of carriage could be amended to require all passengers to turn up wearing a Miner's helmet.

 

[Fat Controller]

IIRC, Mr Bulleid experimented with windowless carriages in the form of his Tavern Cars, which were not a great success. The City and South London, not a railway renowned for its panoramic vistas, tried the idea as well.

In my early days at Eurotunnel, a passenger complained that her son was very disappointed that he hadn't been able to see the fish outside 'like in your the advert on the television'....