HS1 – CONNECTING TO – HS2 – A PIPE DREAM?

When HS2 was planned, there was always the option of connecting HS1 with HS2 in the centre of London. However, on grounds of cost it was decided not to include such a link when the HS2 route was finally agreed in Parliament. When HS1 reached London St Pancras in 2007, a connection had already been built from HS1 to the current West Coast main line. Given the outrageous cost over-runs just for building a “truncated” HS2 from London to Birmingham, you might think that reviving such a link is a non-starter. However, Kayla Bibby -an Independent Traffic Planner thinks otherwise and has drawn up a plan. Tunnelling of the final section from Old Oak Common to Euston has only just

2025 – A YEAR OF “ANNOUNCEMENTS”

During the past year we have enjoyed a series of announcements. It began with up to 5 possible competitors announcing their plans to compete against Eurostar from London. As there is limited room for servicing the trains at the depot in Stratford, the Regulator (Office for Road & Rail) then had to make a decision and invited all the competitors to make formal bids to use the depot. The Regulator then announced in October that Virgin had the most viable offer to run services to Paris, Brussels and Amsterdam using trains they plan to order. Eurostar had also announced their own plans to order new trains and run more services in the future. During the course of the year, we

CROSS EUROPEAN RAIL LINKS CONTINUE TO IMPROVE

While in the UK we now wait to see which Train Operator(s) will offer better rail connections with European destinations, several daytime links across Europe continue to improve. Some of these are explained below:- (1) PARIS to BERLIN: Until last year passengers had to change trains in Frankfurt. There is now a direct daily service between the 2 capital cities taking about 8 hours in each direction. (2) PRAGUE to GDYNIA (BALTIC EXPRESS): Thanks to co-operation between the Czech State Railways and the Polish State Railways in 2024 a 4 times daily Eurocity Service going via Wroclaw and Poznan was launched. The end-to-end journey time is about 9 hours with many opportunities to stop off and visit attractive and interesting

AT LAST – ALL 3 MAIN FRENCH-ITALIAN RAIL CONNECTIONS ARE NOW OPEN

Through TGV and Frecciarossa services between Paris GDLyon ,Torino and Milano finally recommenced on March 31 following the reopening of the direct route via Modane. This line had been closed for over 18 months due to a serious landslip. Both SNCF and Trenitalia now run 2 services each per day from Paris to Milan & Turin. This means that there will once again be a good choice of daytime journey opportunities between London and Northern Italy. There is an alternative choice of services via Paris GDLyon to Milano with an easy change in Geneva or Lausanne. This route provides at least one day-time journey opportunity from London. Another alternative choice, also via Paris GDLyon to Milano, involves an easy change

EUROPE RETURNS TO THE UK IN 2025

This year the European Passenger Federation will hold their 22nd annual conference in Swindon at the Steam Museum, which is near to the rail station. This will be the first time they have held their conference in the UK since 2008. The town of Swindon has a rich rail history and is associated with Rail 200 – a range of events across the UK celebrating 200 years of the railways. The conference will take place on Friday 13th June and Saturday 14th June. European Rail campaign (UK) is a member of the European Passenger Federation, which means that members of our campaign are entitled to pay the reduced fee for the conference. See here for further details about the conference:

30 YEARS OF EUROSTAR – AN ANNIVERSARY TO CELEBRATE ?

Eurostar is 30 years today, since regular train services started to run through the channel tunnel. It was not until 2007 that the full benefits of High-speed rail were realised when HS1 was completed when the London Terminal was moved from Waterloo to St Pancras. Although, in recent years, a through service from London to Rotterdam and Amsterdam has been introduced, other services have been permanently withdrawn or not re-instated since the outbreak of Covid in early 2020. There are no longer any through services from the UK to EuroDisney, the South of France or the Ski resorts in the French Alps. Since Covid, trains no longer serve the intermediate stations of Ebbsfleet, Ashford and Calais Frethun. WHERE ARE WE

MORE NIGHT TRAIN CONNECTIONS FROM THE UK VIA BRUSSELS

Since the launch of their 3 times weekly Night train from Brussels to Prague last year, European sleeper have recently opened bookings for a new winter service from Brussels to Venice via Cologne, Innsbruck and Verona. The service will run 2 times a week in February and March 2025 and is aimed at the Ski and Winter Sports market in the German, Austrian and Italian Alps. To find out more please go to https://www.europeansleeper.eu/ AND NOW FOR SOMETHING A BIT DIFFERENT: – Here is a short video clip at https://www.youtube.com/shorts/6zIkGFr_6RE from a German teenager who has spent more than a year living on German trains. He manages to carry out his work as a software developer and then spends his

FOUR PIECES OF GOOD NEWS

(1) ONE STEP TOWARDS MORE ROOM AT ST PANCRAS: HS1, the owners of St Pancras International station have signed a contract with “Active Thinking”(AT) to come up with recommendations for expanding the capacity of the station to cope with both more passengers and post Brexit passport controls. AT have a track record of similar work at airports, stations and the 2012 Olympics. It is expected that they will have a report ready this autumn. Click here for further information: https://www.newcivilengineer.com/latest/hs1-ltd-commissions-study-to-expand-st-pancras-international-station-12-07-2024/ (2) RE-OPENING OF THE GOTTHARD BASE TUNNEL: Swiss Federal Railways have announced that the tunnel will fully re-open on 2nd September following the freight train de-railment that caused severe damage over a year ago. The one-hour reduction in journey times

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