In message , Dave Liney
writes

Only if you take as truth that most of the people getting on Eurostar trains
are from SWT destinations and that is because people can't cope with the
"struggle" of 1.9 miles/20-30 minutes from St Pancras. I don't.

The argument is more finely balanced than the inconvenience of a poor
interchange. There is the additional time and the fact that there is now
an additional leg of the journey in both directions.

It is the *combination* of these factors that will make St Pancras far
less attractive than Waterloo for customers currently using the latter.

Considering that they won't survive if they haven't done their sums properly

Since Eurostar isn't even remotely "commercial" in the normal sense of
the term, there is every likelihood that they would survive a bad
decision. The shareholders are hardly short of funds!

I'd expect them to have taken the job seriously. Perhaps you don't know all
the facts?

I don't any more than you do. But one only has to look at the history of
the line - customer predictions that were miles off-target, the great
plan for direct services from Manchester, Edinburgh and Leeds that never
transpired - oh, yes, and the famous South Wales to Paris night service.

I'd expect them to do the same as they do at Heathrow which is head for the
tube/train to where they want to go.

And you think that's better than stepping off the train in Waterloo?

--
Paul Terry

"David Marsh" wrote in
message al.lan...
[Outlook Express bug: message invisible. See
http://viewport.co.uk/outlook ]

Do the world a favour, FOAD
Plonk...

On Wed, 24 Nov 2004, David Marsh wrote:

So Waterloo is a good and cheap solution for those north of London

The interchange between St Pancras and Waterloo is poor, especially when
carrying luggage.

How infeasible (read: costly) would it be to build an underground
travelator link between Euston Station (with access from the mainline
and the Underground) to St Pancras International

Better:

PEDESTRIANISE EUSTON ROAD!

Think about it - a broad, leafy (plant some trees), elegant avenue running
from Paddington to King's Cross (if you also do the Marylebone Road and
integrate the land around Paddington Basin), in front of some of the most
refined buildings in northern central London (and some ****ty ones too, of
course). It would be completely wonderful! Stick that in your Piazza San
Marco, Venice, and smoke it!

Not sure what you'd do with the cars, though. I'd suggest cut-and-covering
a highway underneath the avenue, but the Metropolitan Line's got there
first. Perhaps another tunnel could be dug alongside it. Yes! And at the
eastern end, it could carry on through the Widened Lines tunnels, to
Moorgate! Two birds with one stone!

Also not sure how cars would get from the tunnel and the side roads; i bet
that Funky Junction guy could work something out.

Really, though, consider the alternatives:

(a) Cars on the surface, people underground
(b) People on the surface, cars underground

Not rocket science.

(And while I'm in tunnel-digging mode, why not merge Embankment and
Charing Cross Northern/Bakerloo stations into one station (on each line)
with travelators to shrink the distance/time from the existing
entrances, to save the time of an extra station stop?

This is also obviously right.

tom

--
Understand the world we're living in

In article , Matt Wheeler wrote:

"TP" wrote in message
...

Anyway, from Waterloo, you can cross over to Waterloo East and catch a
South Eastern service to Ashford, which, for the fast trains, are just
over an hour..

And pay another £16.70 for a return ticket from Waterloo East to Ashford,
followed by the full Eurostar fare from Ashford?

In article , Stevie D wrote:
Martin Rich wrote:

Which line is that? For many (most?) Waterloo commuters the natural
way to St Pancras is to get off their national rail train at Vauxhall,
admittedly not the nicest or easiest of interchanges, and get the
Victoria Line which in my experience is usually quick and efficient.

The problem is that so many trains don't stop at Vauxhall, which means
an additional change at Clapham Junction, which is not an experience
for the faint-hearted!


And at peak times few of the longer distance mainline trains stop at
Clapham Junction either, making for another change at Woking.

An aspect of this subject which has not been aired here is the fact that
St.Pancras/KX from a public transport point of view is the most overcrowded
in London and distribution of passengers from there is extremely
problematical.This is greatly exacerbated at peak times. This problem will
not be helped by the arrival of the CTRLDS and the absence of an upgraded
Thameslink (3,000?).
MJW

On Wed, 24 Nov 2004 21:10:06 -0000, "M.Whitson"
wrote:

An aspect of this subject which has not been aired here is the fact that
St.Pancras/KX from a public transport point of view is the most overcrowded
in London and distribution of passengers from there is extremely
problematical.This is greatly exacerbated at peak times. This problem will
not be helped by the arrival of the CTRLDS and the absence of an upgraded
Thameslink (3,000?).
MJW



Agreed. The London transport planning community is well aware of this,
hence TfL's plans for LUL upgrades as well as the continuous review
the bus network undergoes....

Rob.
--
rob at robertwoolley dot co dot uk

On 24 Nov 2004 13:44:13 GMT, (Huge) wrote:


But being steadily tarted up. The top end of Grays Inn Rd. is about to
be redeveloped.


Tarting? Speciality of KingsX.....


Rob.
--
rob at robertwoolley dot co dot uk

"M.Whitson" wrote:

An aspect of this subject which has not been aired here is the fact that
St.Pancras/KX from a public transport point of view is the most overcrowded
in London and distribution of passengers from there is extremely
problematical.This is greatly exacerbated at peak times. This problem will
not be helped by the arrival of the CTRLDS and the absence of an upgraded
Thameslink (3,000?).


All very good points, and all true.

David Marsh wrote:
[Outlook Express bug: message invisible. See http://viewport.co.uk/outlook ]
begin Paul Terry's quote in uk.railway
about: Eurostar to quit Waterloo


So Waterloo is a good and cheap solution for those north of London

No. Now you are making your third false assumption.

The interchange between St Pancras and Waterloo is poor, especially when
carrying luggage. Eurostar had the opportunity of enabling all of their
customers to avoid making that cross London journey. They have chosen
not to.

Just a general comment in this thread; everyone is assuming that people
will transfer from Waterloo to St Pancras, but there will also be a
direct transfer between Waterloo and Stratford, which only takes 23
minutes platform to platform, compared to the 16 minutes for Waterloo to
St Pancras. There will hopefully be a travelator at Stratford to
compensate for it being a longer interchange than St Pancras.

How infeasible (read: costly) would it be to build an underground
travelator link between Euston Station (with access from the mainline
and the Underground) to St Pancras International (also linking with
King's Cross and King's Cross / St Pancras Underground)?

It's only about 500 m on the surface, and given the nature of all the
existing gubbins underground, probably less than that in practice.

The existing gubbins underground is rather the problem. There's so much
down there, it would be difficult to find somewhere to put the tunnel
(unless you put it very deep, which just defeats the point if you spend
ages trekking down into the bowels of the earth and out again at the
other end).

This would put Waterloo and Euston (and Victoria, come to that) within
easy reach of St Pancras, with only one Underground transfer required.

Er, Victoria already has a pretty decent link to St Pancras :-)

Better yet: build Cross River Transit; surface light rail between
Waterloo and King's Cross, every 90 seconds in the peaks. No need to
journey to the centre of the earth, and you get a view.

Such a link could also be extended to Euston Square Underground to make
it a proper interchange both for Euston Station and for Eurostar from the
likes of Paddington, Liverpool St, Fenchurch St, etc (although presumably
the latter two would have better Eurostar interchange at Stratford).


(And while I'm in tunnel-digging mode, why not merge Embankment and
Charing Cross Northern/Bakerloo stations into one station (on each line)
with travelators to shrink the distance/time from the existing entrances,
to save the time of an extra station stop? Or would that require an
incredible amount of underground reconstruction work?)

Ouch. Charing Cross Northern and Bakerloo platforms are miles away from
Charing Cross SET as it is, without merging them. It would make more
sense to split them back into what they used to be before the Jubilee
Line arrived - Trafalgar Square (Bakerloo) and Strand (Northern). The
Bakerloo platforms are certainly more suited to Trafalgar Square than
Charing Cross. After all, Embankment used to be called Charing Cross...

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