London Banter - View Single Post - London to Cite Europe

[email protected] · May 3rd 04, 10:22 PM posted to uk.transport.london

In article ,
(Annabel Smyth) wrote:

On Sun, 2 May 2004 at 10:20:39, wrote:

Does anybody know of a firm doing regular trips to Cite Europe
(Calais),
via the Euroshuttle from London or the Croydon area (or perhaps
regularly
from Ashford?).

I'm afraid not. But knowing this newsgroup, somebody will!

A few years ago there used to be an excellent, little publicised, turn
up
and go service from Charing Cross station and other places. You got the
ticket from the station, travelled to Ashford, and there was a regular
coach service on the hour for most of the day to/from Cite Europe and
Calais. Unfortunately the rail company stopped these "due to lack of
interest"!

I know - and it was dirt cheap! Alas... Actually, I thought it was
withdrawn after the demise of duty-free, when there was a huge drop in
the numbers of people crossing the Channel, not realising that even with
French duty paid, wine, spirits, beer and coffee were far cheaper than
they are here. And tobacco is cheaper in Belgium, just an hour up the
road!

The duty free was still on at the time. I (often with a friend and his
son) used to get the coach around twelve or one o'clock from Ashford and
the 19:30 (I think it was the last but one) back from Cite Europe. At
times there were only 3-5 people on board. It was a pity, because if
they'd advertised it properly then it would have probably paid its way. I
think there were around 8 (or 10) journeys each way on a daily basis. They
could have tried cutting the amount of trips down and advertising it more.
It was a nice day out and, other when there was a ferry strike right at
the end, there were never any problems other than the odd delay because
one of the shuttles was cut out due to lack of customers.

The day of the ferry strike was the last one I went on. This was when the
motorway was being used as a lorry park and, of course, all the lorries
were trying to get on the lorry shuttle. It didn't affect us on the actual
shuttle, but because it took so long to get from Ashford, we were that
late that the coach driver stayed in Calais instead of going back to do
another round trip. We then became the last coach to leave.

Roger