In message , TheOneKEA
writes

Paul Terry wrote in message
...

Customers will inevitably re-evaluate Heathrow, which is usually
cheaper and in the future may prove quicker.

Maybe customers in SWT-land.

Those are the ones we are discussing, yes.

But what about customers on the Central
Line? Or customers living in Beckton? Or folks on the District?

They are likely to have to suffer the appalling interchange planned for
Stratford. The last I heard, Union Railways are even resisting putting
in a travelator (it is rumoured they want to force people to walk past a
quarter of mile of shops to get to the International station).

IMO, whatever custom Eurostar *might* lose by closing Waterloo and
forcing folks to go to St. Pancras and Stratford will undoubtedly be
reversed by the much larger numbers of people who will be able to get
to Stratford far more easily (and cheaply!) than Waterloo.

But will such people want or need to use Eurostar?

And why should a company merely want to replace one cohort of customers
with another? Most would use an opportunity such as this to *increase*
their customer base by *adding* all those new fares from Stratford, not
by using them to replace lost Waterloo customers.

As I've already stated, I feel that whatever traffic Eurostar might
lose at Waterloo, it will regain in spades at Stratford.

To a large extent it will depend on whether those needing to go to
Brussels and Paris for business meetings, or choosing to go there on
leisure breaks, live mainly in SW London or in Beckton etc. I suspect it
is mostly the former, and Eurostar are therefore going to be forced to
start building a new customer base from scratch instead of building on
their existing market.

--
Paul Terry