"Henry" wrote in message ...
"Alex Terrell" wrote

The decision means that customers from south of the Thames will have
to travel considerably further to reach trains to Paris and Brussels.


Hard on the heels of British Airways binning the Gatwick-Paris services!

I wonder if there is scope for a Gatwick-Paris train service?

Actually, a fast Gatwick to Ashford service could do the trip in 1
hour. Asford is set to become a major hub with the CTRL, so this might
be an idea.

(Alex Terrell) wrote in message . com...
Considerable debate took place over whether to change the station's
name because the fourth-century saint sparked little recognition among
the French and Belgians but St Pancras was a widely known name in
Britain.


Maybe Brits think that because in France they spell his name
'Pancrace' - there is a district of Nice called St-Pancrace that I
know personally, and a quick Google reveals places or districts named
after him in the Dordogne (near Brantôme), Rouen, the Alps, Provence,
in fact there are dozens all over France - more than in England! I
would not exactly call that "little recogised".

In message , at 16:55:21 on Mon, 15
Nov 2004, Clive D. W. Feather remarked:
In article , Roland
Perry writes
Also, the routes through the terminal will have to be considered -
while getting on is relatively straight forward assuming they drop the
last-minute-only boarding scheme, getting off currently involves a
considerable walk through the bowels of the building.

Actually, if you work it out that won't be necessary.

Looking from the west side, the layout is something like this:

Platform level
----------------------------------------------------
| S | / \ /
Booking | E | / Departure \ / SEC = security
hall | C | / lounge \ / checks
---------------------------------------------
| C | \ /
Meet & | & | \ Arrivals / C&I = Customs &
greet area | I | \ area / Immigration
-----------------------------------------

Passengers go from the departure lounge into little foyers which lead
to the escalators and travalators. On arrival, these same foyers divert
them into further routes downwards into the arrivals area.

Remove the security and C&I mess, and you can send everyone through one
layer and take over the other layer for other purposes.

You've done just what I suggested and "considered the route through the
terminals". Having everyone use a single layers is a definite
possibility: it certainly shortens the "considerable walk" I was worried
about.
--
Roland Perry

"Henry" wrote in message
...
"Alex Terrell" wrote

The decision means that customers from south
of the Thames will have to travel considerably
further to reach trains to Paris and Brussels.

Hard on the heels of British Airways
binning the Gatwick-Paris services!

Maybe a fast train from Reading via Guildford, Redhill and Tonbridge to
Ashford would do the trick.

--
John Rowland - Spamtrapped
Transport Plans for the London Area, updated 2001
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Acro...69/tpftla.html
A man's vehicle is a symbol of his manhood.
That's why my vehicle's the Piccadilly Line -
It's the size of a county and it comes every two and a half minutes

"M.Whitson" wrote in message
...
I would suggestr that if E* quit Waterloo then they are going to upset a
lot
of important people.

Do important people only live in London and the South East, with rail
connections directly into Waterloo?

SNIP
E* is at pains to
tell us how they have carried 6M passengers so far this year but I seem to
remember that 10 years ago the projection was that by now that there
would
be 16M passengers.

Perhaps because of factors: NoL Eurostar, 11th September, and the delay in
building CTRL, to name but a few?

I'd like to be able to travel from my local station (about 1/4 mile from my
home), and get to France with minimal interchanges and fuss.

Present journey - Nodding Donkey to Sheffield, then a MML HST/Meridian to
St. Pancras, tube to Waterloo, E* to Lille.

Ideal journey - Tram/train to Sheffield, E* to Lille, along HSL.

As much as I'd like to go on train, as we prefer it, I drive us down to
Ashford, or we fly from Manchester. I don't want to suffer multiple changes
and dragging of suitcases on the tube, just to London and the SE can have
Waterloo for their sole "exclusive" use.

Charley, Huddersfield

Paul Terry wrote in message ...
In message , Alex
Terrell writes

The Daily Telegraph reports that Eurostar will quit Waterloo in 2007.

I think this is a good idea. Even from Waterloo, it would be quicket
to take the tube to St Pancras and then take a fast Eurostar.

There's no direct tube! It ought to be quicker to take the Jubilee
direct from Waterloo to Stratford and pick-up Eurostar there. However,
the interchange at Stratford looks as though it is going to be poor.

Actually, it won't. If the Stratford International DLR link is mooted,
passengers will have level access from the Jubbly terminus to the
former westbound NLL platform, where they can catch the DLR to the
International station.

You are right about the lack of direct tube services; unfortunately,
the obvious choice of changing at Warren Street requires hiking
through the station. Too bad that Crossrail 3 will be opened after the
sun has burnt out...

"M.Whitson" wrote in message
...

With regard to interchange at Stratford the E*station is
about 1/3rd of a mile from Stratford ML, UD and DLR but this will be
ameliorated by the decision to require Union Railways North to provide a
travelator.

It's likely that DLR will take over Canning Town - Stratford LL from NLL,
and be extended to Stratford International. NLL will be diverted into the
Lea Valley platforms. Crossrail will take over from west of Custom House to
east of Silvertown.
Peter

"Charley_Ashbury" wrote in message
...

"M.Whitson" wrote in message
...
I would suggestr that if E* quit Waterloo then they are going to upset a
lot
of important people.

Do important people only live in London and the South East, with rail
connections directly into Waterloo?

I think you have missed the point. The important people are the denizens of
Whitehall and the Palace of Westminster both within a short taxi ride of
Waterloo. Also you cannot escape the fact that it is more than likely that a
very large proportion of E* passengers originate from locations with direct
access to Waterloo. Paris/Brussels bound passengers from more than 40 miles
north of London will find it far more convenient and less time consuming to
use their regional airport - Stanstead, Manchester, Liverpool Newcastle etc.
MJW

In message , TheOneKEA
writes

withdrawal of Eurostar from Waterloo

If the Stratford International DLR link is mooted, passengers will have
level access from the Jubbly terminus to the former westbound NLL
platform, where they can catch the DLR to the International station.

But you see how this compares with the current interchange at Waterloo:
it takes just a few seconds from SWT to Eurostar. We know that is
closing, but Stratford is still being argued over and the interchange at
Waterloo to the jubbly is hardly brilliant. Customers will inevitably
re-evaluate Heathrow, which is usually cheaper and in the future may
prove quicker.

I guess that Eurostar have done their sums, but I regard a single very
slick change (as at Waterloo at present) as a huge selling point. So do
Eurostar, but they now only express this in terms of customers coming
from the north and midlands (good luck to those customers ... but they
are not going to provide the enormous day-trip trade to the near-
continent that is possible from SW London).

I suspect Eurostar will lose a fair amount of traffic to Heathrow, and
I'm not convinced they will easily replace it. Strange for a company to
want to restrict its outlets ... and if the government was serious in
wanting to restrict air-traffic pollution, it might have stepped in
(perhaps Eurostar are hoping they still might!).

--
Paul Terry

In message
"Peter Masson" wrote:

[snip]

There could be a case for running 15x23m trains on the Southampton Main
Line, with platform extensions at, say, Woking, Basingstoke, Winchester,
Southampton Airport Parkway and Southampton Central.

Winchester would be a bugger to extend and Southampton Central would cause
problems I suspect, you'd have to extend at the country end.

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