"Roland Perry" wrote

They could probably cope if they stabled the trains somewhere else. I
don't know if they have the paths or the capacity at Stratford depot. But
with up to five Eurostars inside St Pancras at times (but probably only
three scheduled to depart in the next hour), there isn't room for much
more!

E*s proliferate to fill the platform space available at St Pancras. There
are six international platforms, so there should be no difficulty in
handling six arrivals and departures per hour, and eight should not be
impossible. Currently the Channel Tunnel can provide 20 paths per hour.
Eurotunnel is entitled to use half of these, leaving 10 paths for
international railways trains. But because E*s (and potentially other
international passenger trains) run at a higher speed through the Tunnel
than Eurotunnel Shuttles, a E* takes two paths, or a flight of two E*s takes
three paths. So the capacity for international passenger trains is only 6
tph. If the signalling in the Tunnel was beefed up it is possible that there
could be 24 paths per hour. 12 of these would be available for through
railways trains, which, in flights of two, makes a maximum capacity of 8
tph. Of course, ir would be better use of Tunnel capacity, if the traffic
could be attracted, to use a good proportion of the through railways
capacity for international freight.

Peter