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

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?

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.

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??

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...

In message , asdf
writes

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...

I wonder if it will be possible to turn Eurostar services at Stratford
if an incident like the one this weekend makes access to the terminus
impossible?
--
Paul Terry

On Sat, 17 Mar 2007, asdf wrote:

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...

True. A service running over the CTRL would, however, be a lot more
practical/reliable than one running over the south London suburban lines.

tom

--
Destroy - kill all hippies.