Paul Weaver wrote:

On Sun, 15 Aug 2004 19:43:19 +0000, David Jackman wrote:


Colin McKenzie wrote in
:



... With CTRL, the
tunnel should be quicker than air for lots more origins/destinations.

Colin McKenzie

Which destinations had you in mind? Even with CTRL it will still be the
wrong side of two hours, plus check-in, for both Paris and Brussels. You
might make a dent in the London - Rotterdam market but everywhere else
remains significantly more than than magic three hours from London.
(I can't find a figure for the London-Koln journey time but
London-Amsterdam is quoted at 3h 45m over the new Dutch high speed line.
This isn't going to create a massive modal shift or vast increase in
the number of passengers between London and Amsterdam).


People travel London-Edinburgh by train. Wouldn't you get enough for even
one an hour?

I'd like some long distance sleepers to be honest. Direct from London,
leave at night ~ 10PM, through tunnel, stop at calais, paris, then down to
Geneva, Milan, Rome, Naples, Bari, Brindisi, Lecce. Another one might be
Paris, Nice, Turin, Milan, Venice (or mestre and onto Triest and
Lubjania). An Iberian one to Paris, Bordeux, Barcelona, Madrid, Lisbon. A
Brussels, Amsterdam, Berlin, Warsaw one, Another to South Germany and
Austria. Etc.

I would've thought long-distance sleeper services through the Tunnel
were a winner. Leave London in the evening (plenty of time to get from
most other places in the country) and wake up in the depths of Europe
without having to deal with getting to and from airports and exhausting
yourself during the day (or at some horrible time of morning if it's a
cheap airline!) You could essentially "save" a day's travelling.

How far can you travel in 10 hours? You can probably make Turin and
Berlin at least.

London to Milan is currently around 12 hours with changes at Paris and
Lausanne or Geneva so I think that could be a 10 hour destination.
London to Nice is already a 10 hour journey via Paris so that would make
an easy high-speed sleeper service.
London to Barcelona is around 12 hours changing at Lille and Perpignan;
that would be a problem as it is a Talgo service from Perpignan but you
could run the sleeper as far as Perpignan for the moment.
London to Berlin is currently a 12-hour journey travelling overnight
between Brussels and Wolfsburg, with connections either side. A direct
train might make it in 11 hours. (about an hour between connections at
Brussels but much less at Wolfsburg)

Is the tunnel used much at night? (leave London arorund 11 or midnight, so
midnight - 2AM)?

I think freight trains use it a lot at night so pathing through the
tunnel might be quite slow if it's between freights. It also depends if
any of these freights use the CTRL, as that would also slow down sleeper
services.

--
Dave Arquati
Imperial College, SW7
www.alwaystouchout.com - Transport projects in London