FLIGHTFREE UK INVITES YOU TO A PYJAMA PARTY AT LONDON ST PANCRAS IN SUPPORT OF NIGHT TRAINS

Friday 25th October >>>> 7.30pm (till approx 8.30pm) >>>> St Pancras International station (Eurostar exit) Meet us at 7.30pm at the Eurostar exit inside St Pancras station– Wear pyjamas and bring whatever other nighttime paraphernalia you like e.g. teddy bears.– Bring a fully-charged smartphone and headphones.– Download the Zeno Radio app (or you can access this in your browser) to get the playlist.– Plug in, dance and enjoy!

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

ONE TRAIN TICKET ACROSS THE EUROPEAN UNION ?

Although the UK is no longer a member of the European Union, we should also benefit, if this ever becomes a reality. The European Commission President has recently re-stated her commitment to drive this forward during the next 5 years, since her re-election for a 2nd term. Here is a brief critical report of the statement she made on the 2nd of August 2024: – European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen wants Europeans to have easier international train travel. In her new term, it will be possible to travel across several countries with a single train ticket, she promised at her re-election. “Cross-border rail travel is still too difficult for many residents,” Von der Leyen wrote in her political

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

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

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

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

MORE TRAINS – LESS PLANES

This is the title of a comprehensive report which was published by Greenpeace last month. They investigated 112 routes across 27 European countries and came to the conclusion that on average travel by train costs twice as much as travel by plane. For each route they checked the fares for 9 different travel days. The worst example was the cost of travel on the same day from Barcelona to London, where the cheapest train fare was a whopping 30 times more expensive than the air fare. London-Barcelona is also one of the busiest air routes in Europe with a rather poor rail alternative at present in terms of cost, speed and frequency. The report outlines some suggested action points for

A NEW NIGHT TRAIN CONNECTION FROM BRUSSELS TO BERLIN HAS STARTED.

On the evening of Thursday 25th May the first European Sleeper left Berlin at 22.56 arriving in Brussels at around 9.30 the next morning. The return service to Berlin then left Brussels at 19.22 on Friday 26th May arriving in Berlin around 7.00 the next morning. This new service, running 3 times a week offers useful connections with the Eurostar service from Brussels to London and can also be joined at Rotterdam & Amsterdam. They hope to extend this service to Dresden and Prague next year. For further details see: https://www.europeansleeper.eu/en The launch of the new service got a lot of good publicity including this article in The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2023/may/29/berlin-to-brussels-night-train-renaissance-gathers-speed-new-european-sleeper