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Graeme Wall · October 16th 04, 06:48 PM posted to uk.railway,uk.transport.london

In message
(Alex Terrell) wrote:

"Peter Masson" wrote in message
...
"Bob" wrote in message
...

Anyway, the point of the line is to cut as much as possible off the
journey
time between London and Paris / Brussels. Running trains at 186mph is
the plan - your commuter trains at 140mph would get in the way.

Half the CTRL-DS trains will turn off at Ebbsfleet, and AIUI the line
limit between St Pancras and Ebbsfleet will be 140 mph or less. Between
Ebbsfleet and Ashford the peak demand for the forseeable future will be 4
tph for E* and 4 tph for CTRL-DS, and the line will be perfectly capable
of accommodating these, even with a 186/140 mph speed mix. Peter

Good point - especially valid if they run the Eurostars in pairs, one
to Brussels and one to Paris.

They already do, the two services depart Waterloo 5 minutes apart, all to do
with paths through the Channel Tunnel. IIRC one Eurostar requires two
shuttle paths but a 'flight' of two Eurostars only requires 3 paths, thus
saving a path that Eurotunnel can use either for shuttles or freight. This
obviously has the same effect on the CTRL: 2 fast trains close together, then
the next two 25 minutes later, should be fairly easy to flight the slower
trains in the resulting gaps.

--
Graeme Wall
This address is not read, substitute trains for rail.
Transport Miscellany at http://www.greywall.demon.co.uk/rail/index.html