Eurostar
 

Paul Terry wrote:
In message , Paul Corfield
writes

I cannot understand why anyone would fly to somewhere like Paris.

Well, I'm glad I'm not currently expecting to travel by Eurostar, given
the continuity of cancellations over the next 18 hours. :(

OK, I grant you that the current type of extended cancellation is
unusual, but I've often experienced delays. Despite long check-in times
at airports, the air-travel time is obviously much shorter, and
Eurostar's prices are often not very competitive.

I'm putting myself up as a bit of a stalking horse, because I actually
prefer rail travel, but I don't think Eurostar has yet managed.

But my main point is that as a resident of SW London, I have generally
used Eurostar from Waterloo because of its convenience.

Having watched all of the expenditure on the new route into St Pancras,
I cannot help but reflect that few such expensive schemes could also
have resulted in potentially less convenience for a significant slice of
its customers (like it or not, SW London is full of rich folks jaunting
off to France, civil servants going on "a jolly" to Brussels, and city
businessmen needing to go to Paris). Many of these folk live closer to
Heathrow than St Pancras - time spent selecting the right tie and
sandwiches for trip, and doing a bit of telephoning and paperwork in the
departure lounge, might well seem more appealing than being jammed into
the Piccadilly line across London.

From a pure-numbers point of view, there are more people within an
hour's journey of St Pancras than there are within an hour of Waterloo.
Throwing Stratford into the mix (if they actually use it!) boosts this
considerably. The Thameslink Programme will get even more people
connected to St Pancras (including from some bits of south west London
and Surrey), and Crossrail would also place a lot of extra people closer
to St Pancras (via Farringdon).

Business people and rich people live north of London too...

--
Dave Arquati
www.alwaystouchout.com - Transport projects in London

Eurostar
 

On Mar 17, 10:48 am, Dave A wrote:
Paul Terry wrote:
In message , Paul Corfield
writes

I cannot understand why anyone would fly to somewhere like Paris.

Well, I'm glad I'm not currently expecting to travel by Eurostar, given
the continuity of cancellations over the next 18 hours. :(

OK, I grant you that the current type of extended cancellation is
unusual, but I've often experienced delays. Despite long check-in times
at airports, the air-travel time is obviously much shorter, and
Eurostar's prices are often not very competitive.

I'm putting myself up as a bit of a stalking horse, because I actually
prefer rail travel, but I don't think Eurostar has yet managed.

But my main point is that as a resident of SW London, I have generally
used Eurostar from Waterloo because of its convenience.

Having watched all of the expenditure on the new route into St Pancras,
I cannot help but reflect that few such expensive schemes could also
have resulted in potentially less convenience for a significant slice of
its customers (like it or not, SW London is full of rich folks jaunting
off to France, civil servants going on "a jolly" to Brussels, and city
businessmen needing to go to Paris). Many of these folk live closer to
Heathrow than St Pancras - time spent selecting the right tie and
sandwiches for trip, and doing a bit of telephoning and paperwork in the
departure lounge, might well seem more appealing than being jammed into
the Piccadilly line across London.

From a pure-numbers point of view, there are more people within an
hour's journey of St Pancras than there are within an hour of Waterloo.
Throwing Stratford into the mix (if they actually use it!) boosts this
considerably. The Thameslink Programme will get even more people
connected to St Pancras (including from some bits of south west London
and Surrey), and Crossrail would also place a lot of extra people closer
to St Pancras (via Farringdon).

Isn't crossrail going to Stratford too?

Eurostar
 

In message , Paul Corfield
writes
There is no
requirement to check in 30 minutes in advance for an international train
in Europe that might well pass through huge tunnels on its route.
Is it anything to do with our war in Iraq/Afghanistan fear of (Al Qieda)
or did the delay at Waterloo always exist?
--
Clive.

Eurostar
 

On 17 Mar 2007 07:32:08 -0700, Paul Weaver wrote:

From a pure-numbers point of view, there are more people within an
hour's journey of St Pancras than there are within an hour of Waterloo.
Throwing Stratford into the mix (if they actually use it!) boosts this
considerably. The Thameslink Programme will get even more people
connected to St Pancras (including from some bits of south west London
and Surrey), and Crossrail would also place a lot of extra people closer
to St Pancras (via Farringdon).

Isn't crossrail going to Stratford too?

Yes, but Eurostar isn't.

Eurostar
 

In message ,
writes

Do you know the reason for the cancellations Paul .

Lineside fire near Wandsworth Road station yesterday afternoon: danger
of exploding gas cylinders means that the line has to be closed for more
than 24 hours.
--
Paul Terry

Eurostar
 

On Sat, 17 Mar 2007, asdf wrote:

On 17 Mar 2007 07:32:08 -0700, Paul Weaver wrote:

From a pure-numbers point of view, there are more people within an
hour's journey of St Pancras than there are within an hour of
Waterloo. Throwing Stratford into the mix (if they actually use it!)
boosts this considerably. The Thameslink Programme will get even more
people connected to St Pancras (including from some bits of south west
London and Surrey), and Crossrail would also place a lot of extra
people closer to St Pancras (via Farringdon).

Isn't crossrail going to Stratford too?

Yes, but Eurostar isn't.

Might not be. Once the dust has settled after the Olympics and the area
starts to fill up with suits and trendies, and Crossrail arrives, stopping
international trains there will make a lot more business sense.

tom

--
WHO REPLACED THE CLIENT FILES WITH TEQUILA.. ALFONZ??

Eurostar
 

On Sat, 17 Mar 2007 19:34:12 +0000, Tom Anderson wrote:

Isn't crossrail going to Stratford too?

Yes, but Eurostar isn't.

Might not be. Once the dust has settled after the Olympics and the area
starts to fill up with suits and trendies, and Crossrail arrives, stopping
international trains there will make a lot more business sense.

I assume it suffers from the same cost issues as keeping Waterloo
International open (i.e. lots of staff needed to run the security
checkpoints, duplicating those over at St P), and I'd have thought a
station at Stratford is less useful/desirable than one at Waterloo...

Eurostar
 

In article ,
(Paul Terry) wrote:

In message ,
writes

Do you know the reason for the cancellations Paul .

Lineside fire near Wandsworth Road station yesterday afternoon:
danger of exploding gas cylinders means that the line has to be
closed for more than 24 hours.

Oh, not that again! Acetylene gas cylinders should be banned or else some
way found of protecting them from this nonsense.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

Eurostar
 

Colin Rosenstiel wrote:

Oh, not that again! Acetylene gas cylinders should be banned or else
some way found of protecting them from this nonsense.

Something should be done about many things that are stored on properties
adjacent to major rail and road arteries.

Up until a while ago there was a yard at Neasden (the old McNicholas yard),
just on the Dollis Hill side of Neasden South Junction, that was full of
skips of different sizes. There were several piles of them, stacked up to
ten or twelve skips high, backing onto the Chiltern line. At the top they
were leaning towards the railway. I often wondered what would have happened
if they had toppled over in a gale, or something, onto the track.

Eurostar
 

On Mar 17, 3:57 pm, Paul Terry wrote:
In message ,
writes

Do you know the reason for the cancellations Paul .

Lineside fire near Wandsworth Road station yesterday afternoon: danger
of exploding gas cylinders means that the line has to be closed for more
than 24 hours.

Didn't Olympia used to be a possible destination for E*?

Personally I think that the two E* London Terminals should be
Waterloo, for terminating trains, and Stratford, with trains then
heading North to the majority of the country.

Were trains still running from Ashford with local connections?