Reminder - bookings for Eurostar from St Pancras are now available via their
website

www.eurostar.com

Paul

On Jul 24, 10:58 am, "Paul Scott"
wrote:
Reminder - bookings for Eurostar from St Pancras are now available via their
website

www.eurostar.com

Paul

Is there any prospect of through services yet beyond London? Also does
anyone know if TGVs or ICEs will ever visit these shores now that
there is a UIC gauge route the whole way?

B2003

"Boltar" wrote in message
ups.com...
On Jul 24, 10:58 am, "Paul Scott"
wrote:
Reminder - bookings for Eurostar from St Pancras are now available via
their
website

Is there any prospect of through services yet beyond London?

Not likely - they've lent the appropriate trains to SNCF for services in
France.

Also does
anyone know if TGVs or ICEs will ever visit these shores now that
there is a UIC gauge route the whole way?

No - not until the construction rules for trains using the tunnel are
changed. As discussed many times before...

Paul

On Jul 24, 11:27 am, Boltar wrote:
Is there any prospect of through services yet beyond London? Also does
anyone know if TGVs or ICEs will ever visit these shores now that
there is a UIC gauge route the whole way?


Only if they can be modified to comply with Channel Tunnel safety
standards, plus whatever signalling systems are necessary. This is
not easy, so it would probably be easier to build new.

Oh, if they are not carrying passengers I suppose there's a
possibility, but there wouldn't be much point.

PhilD

--

On 24 Jul, 12:28, PhilD wrote:
Only if they can be modified to comply with Channel Tunnel safety
standards, plus whatever signalling systems are necessary. This is
not easy, so it would probably be easier to build new.

How different are these standards to those required for the rail
tunnels in the alps?

B2003

On Jul 24, 11:44 am, Boltar wrote:

How different are these standards to those required for the rail
tunnels in the alps?


Has been discussed ad nauseam in uk.railway over the last 10 years.

Its not so much what the rules are ... but who made them.

--
Nick

On Jul 24, 11:21 pm, D7666 wrote:
On Jul 24, 11:44 am, Boltar wrote:

How different are these standards to those required for the rail
tunnels in the alps?

Has been discussed ad nauseam in uk.railway over the last 10 years.

Well excuse me for not trawling back through a few hundred thousand
posts from the 90s.

B2003

Boltar wrote:
On 24 Jul, 12:28, PhilD wrote:
Only if they can be modified to comply with Channel Tunnel safety
standards, plus whatever signalling systems are necessary. This is
not easy, so it would probably be easier to build new.

How different are these standards to those required for the rail
tunnels in the alps?

This subject has been covered to death on both uk.railway and
misc.transport.rail.europe. In summary, services other than London -
Ebbsfleed - Ashsford - Lille - Paris/Brussels are not practicable in the
current situation for two main reasons:

1) All platforms at which the trains call must be secure zones, will the
only entry to the platform through security. This has the effect that
if you have more than a couple of trains a day, you need dedicated
platforms. Useful destinations such as Antwerp, Amsterdam, Cologne,
Birmingham, Leeds and Manchester have no spare platforms and no space to
build new ones. This could be solved by dealing with security and
Immigration on board the train between London and Ashford (outbound) or
Lille and Calais (inbound), putting undesirables off the train at
Callais/Ashford.

2) Trains through the tunnel must meet very stringent safety
requirements. Probably the most awkward of these is the need to be able
to didvide the train to use part of the train to remove passengers so
that a disabled and dangerous half-set can be abandonned in the tunnel,
and the passengers can be evacuated. Conventional TGVs are indivisible
sets, and coupled sets have no access between the two halves. ICE3s
suffer a similar problem for different technical reasons. To solve this
would either require the safety regulations to be eased, to something
closer to those in place in other long tunnels in Europe (eg the Severn
tunnel, the various alpine tunnels &c.).

Both of these problems can only be rectified by changing the treaty
between the UK and France that allowed the tunnel to be built. While
not impossible, it would take a great deal of time and effort to make it
happen, and most discussion on these two newsgroups has come to the
conclusion that it is highly desirable from a railway perspective, it is
unlikely to happen any time soon.

Robin

"R.C. Payne" wrote in message
...

2) Trains through the tunnel must meet very stringent safety requirements.
Probably the most awkward of these is the need to be able to didvide the
train to use part of the train to remove passengers so that a disabled and
dangerous half-set can be abandonned in the tunnel, and the passengers can
be evacuated. Conventional TGVs are indivisible sets, and coupled sets
have no access between the two halves. ICE3s suffer a similar problem for
different technical reasons. To solve this would either require the
safety regulations to be eased, to something closer to those in place in
other long tunnels in Europe (eg the Severn tunnel, the various alpine
tunnels &c.).

Both of these problems can only be rectified by changing the treaty
between the UK and France that allowed the tunnel to be built. While not
impossible, it would take a great deal of time and effort to make it
happen, and most discussion on these two newsgroups has come to the
conclusion that it is highly desirable from a railway perspective, it is
unlikely to happen any time soon.


Not forgetting that it suits Eurostar to have what is in effect a non tariff
barrier to competing new entrants to the cross channel route, so they aren't
likely to propose a relaxation of the standards. It will be interesting to
see eventually if that extends to buying high cost like for like
replacements for the existing trains, rather than 'off the shelf' units from
the then current range of TGV type trains.

Paul

Am Wed, 25 Jul 2007 10:47:47 UTC, schrieb "R.C. Payne"
auf uk.railway :

2) Trains through the tunnel must meet very stringent safety
requirements. Probably the most awkward of these is the need to be able
to didvide the train to use part of the train to remove passengers so
that a disabled and dangerous half-set can be abandonned in the tunnel,
and the passengers can be evacuated.

This divisibility was a requirement imposed by the IGC
(Intergovernmental Commission) back then, but is no longer a
requirement put forward by Eurotunnel. The minimum requirements are
laid out in Eurotunnel's "Network Statement" which can be found on
their website, following the third section link "Corporate
information", then in the "About us" section of the left hand
navigation column selecting "Our developments".

As Nick D7666 wrote in his reply, most current high-speed trainsets
circulating on European continent would meet the safety requirements
of Eurotunnel in regard to be fireproof, power requirements etc.

The requirement for "fire proof doors between some cars" might
require modifications in the trains, but that could be done.

Rather difficult is the requirement that a train should be so long
that at least one door is near one of the emergency exits to the
service tunnel, whereever the trains comes to a full stop, and that
this door is accessible internally from all cars in the train.

This requires a single trainset with a minimum length of 375 meters
between the outermost doors at both ends.

The ICE-3 is conceived as a eight car trainset of 200 meters
length, composed of two modules of four cars each, the pilot car being
one of that four-car module. Two of such trainsets can be coupled
(automatically) to form a double traction, which is done and undone
quite often depending on the traffic requirements, but such a double
traction does not have the thru corridor. While a trainset of sixteen
cars is thinkable, it would require quite some redesign of four-car
modules without the pilot car.

But as mentioned elsewhere, the safety requirements are doable, but
the security requirements make it, in my opinion, economically
unfeasable to go to other destinations on the continent beyond London
and Brussels.


Cheers,
L.W.