NOW IS THE TIME FOR EUROSTAR TO RETURN TO KENT

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

BRUSSELS DECLARATION PUTS UK TRANSPORT POLICY TO SHAME

BRUSSELS DECLARATION PUTS UK TRANSPORT POLICY TO SHAME

On the 4th April 2024 all 27 EU Transport Ministers met in Brussels and issued a 20-point formal declaration outlining the most sustainable Transport Policy for the next European Parliament from 2024 to 2029. They are calling on the parliament to “Make rail transport the backbone of European mobility”. This is in stark contrast to the current UK Government’s complete lack of interest in expanding the capacity of our rail network. We can only hope that after the UK election in July, the new Government will have a more enlightened approach to rail. Even though the UK is not an EU member state, we have listed below 3 of the most important points which we believe could help our campaign:-

GOOD NEWS AT LAST – SPICE comes to LONDON St Pancras International.

In case you wondered, SPICE stands for St Pancras International Capacity Enhancement. This is a project led by HS1(who own the station) to help determine the best way to expand the capacity for international train services serving the station. They plan to do this by producing 3 separate reports in June, July and August this year. This is something that we have been campaigning for in recent years – let’s now hope that the reports actually lead to some concrete action in the not-too-distant future. AND ALSO – IF YOU LIVE IN KENT >>> In case you missed it back in March there was a very informative webinar run by Bring Back Euro Trains at https://bringbackeurotrains.com/, discussing the campaign to

HAS GETLINK FINALLY “Got it” ?

Since the opening of the Channel Tunnel almost 30 years ago, Getlink (Formerly Eurotunnel) may have finally understood the need to make it easier to run more passenger trains through the tunnel. Evolyn, Heuro, Swiss Federal Railways and Virgin all announced last year tentative plans to launch new services via the tunnel. HS1 who own St Pancras International Station and the high-speed line to the tunnel have also stated that they want to increase their income from track access charges paid by train operators. Will this mean that some of the many barriers for new entrants to this market will finally be removed? Getlink plan to double the number of high-speed electric trains using the tunnel during the next 10

EPF MEETS WITH EUROSTAR

EPF MEETS WITH EUROSTAR

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

WITH 2 RECENT MAJOR INFRASTRUCTURE FAILURES, BOTH HS1 AND EUROSTAR NEED BETTER CONTINGENCY PLANS

At the end of the 2023 Xmas & New Year holiday period, the Eurostar service to and from London St Pancras was cancelled for the best part of a day. These incidents both occurred during the busiest time of year: – one just before the Xmas holiday and the other just before the New Year Holiday. Several thousand people were left stranded and had their holiday travel plans ruined. In both cases, we have to ask – are Eurostar maintaining their trains in a good condition and are HS1 looking after the infrastructure? We also have to ask them both why it took so long to get services back to normal and rescue passengers from a stranded train? One morning,

EURC(UK) – THE CAMPAIGN MOVES INTO IT’S FIFTH YEAR

We celebrated our 4th anniversary at our annual general meeting held in Birmingham on the 8th of December, noting a steadily growing membership. We were pleased to note that Eurostar were now running almost the same as the pre-covid service, even if this was not at pre-covid fares and still not serving Ashford and Ebbsfleet. Recently, there were more rumours in the press that, yet another European train operator wants to run a service to the UK via the channel tunnel – this time it was Swiss Federal Railways from Basel to London. Whether any of these 3 “plans” to compete against Eurostar see the light of day remains to be seen. What can we look forward to as we

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

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

CLIMATE CHANGE HITS 3 KEY EUROPEAN RAIL ARTERIES

At a time when we need to use our European Rail Network more than ever, 3 separate extreme weather events blocked 3 important rail routes during August and September. (1) On the 7th of August during “Storm Hans”, extreme rainfall and flooding caused the collapse of a bridge near Lillehammer on the main trunk line serving Northern Norway between Oslo and Trondheim. It will take a minimum of 3 months to restore any kind of service. There is only one alternative slower route with limited capacity. (2) On the 27th of August there was a very large rockfall near Modane which blocked the key Transalpine link between France and Italy. It is estimated that it will take a minimum of

ALL ABOUT TRAINS – A TRAIN TRACKER WHICH NOW COVERS 11 EUROPEAN COUNTRIES !!

While many countries may have their own train trackers on websites or via an app – did you know there is one which now covers 11 countries, which is effectively most of Central and Western Europe, including Eurostar to/from the UK ? You can find out current and historic punctuality records for all long-distance trains by train number or by station. You can also access diagrams to see how well parts of the European Rail Network are currently performing. Another useful feature is the ability to find the reliability and punctuality of particular connections, which can be useful if they are rather “tight”. The Countries covered are:- Germany, France, Belgium, Netherlands, Denmark, Poland, Switzerland, Austria, Czechia, Slovenia and Italy. You