Eurostar is an international high-speed railway service connecting London with Amsterdam, Avignon, Brussels, Bourg-Saint-Maurice, Disneyland Paris, Lille, Fréthun, Lyon, Marseille, Paris, and Rotterdam. All its trains travel through the Channel Tunnel between the United Kingdom and France, owned and operated separately by Getlink.
The London terminus is St Pancras International, the other British calling points are Ebbsfleet International and Ashford International in Kent. Intermediate calling points in France are Calais-Fréthun and Lille-Europe, with trains to Paris terminating at Gare du Nord. Trains to Belgium terminate at Midi/Zuid station in Brussels. The only intermediate calling station in the Netherlands is Rotterdam Centraal and trains terminate at Amsterdam Centraal. There are direct services from London to Disneyland Paris at Marne-la-Vallée – Chessy, direct services to southern France (Lyon, Avignon and Marseille), and seasonal direct services to the French Alps in winter (December to April).
The service is operated by eighteen-coach Class 373/1 trains and sixteen-coach Class 374 trains which run at up to 320 kilometres per hour (199 mph) on a network of high-speed lines. The LGV Nord line in France opened before Eurostar services began in 1994, and newer lines enabling faster journeys were added later—HSL 1 in Belgium and High Speed 1 in south-east England. The French and Belgian parts of the network are shared with Paris–Brussels Thalys services and TGV trains. In the United Kingdom the two-stage Channel Tunnel Rail Link project was completed on 14 November 2007 and renamed High Speed 1, when the London terminus of Eurostar moved from London Waterloo International to St Pancras International.
Until 2010, Eurostar was operated jointly by the national railway companies of France and Belgium, SNCF and SNCB/NMBS, and Eurostar (UK) Ltd (EUKL), a subsidiary of London and Continental Railways (LCR) that owned the high-speed infrastructure and stations on the British side. Eurostar has become the dominant operator on the routes it operates, carrying more passengers than all airlines combined. Other operators expressed an interest in starting competing services following deregulation in 2010. On 1 September 2010, Eurostar was incorporated as a single corporate entity, Eurostar International Limited (EIL), replacing the joint operation between EUKL, SNCF and SNCB/NMBS.[1] EIL is owned by SNCF (55%), Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec (CDPQ) (30%), Hermes Infrastructure (10%) and SNCB (5%).[2][3][4]
In June 2014, the UK shareholding in Eurostar International Limited was transferred from London and Continental Railways / Department for Transport to HM Treasury.[5] That October, it was announced that the UK government planned to raise £300 million by selling its stake.[6] In March 2015, the UK government announced that it would sell its 40% share to an Anglo-Canadian consortium made up of the Caisse and Hermes Infrastructure. The sale was completed in May 2015
The history of Eurostar can be traced to the 1986 choice of a rail tunnel to provide a cross-channel link between Britain and France.[7] A previous attempt to construct a tunnel between the two nations had begun in 1974, but was quickly aborted. Construction began on a new basis in 1988. Eurotunnel was created to manage and own the tunnel, which was finished in 1993, the official opening taking place on 6 May 1994.[8]
In addition to the tunnel's shuttle trains carrying cars and lorries between Folkestone and Calais, the decision to build a railway tunnel opened up the possibility of through passenger and freight train services between places further afield.[9] British Rail and SNCF contracted with Eurotunnel to use half the tunnel's capacity for this purpose. In 1987, Britain, France and Belgium set up an International Project Group to specify a train to provide an international high-speed passenger service through the tunnel. France had been operating high-speed TGV services since 1981, and had begun construction of a new high-speed line between Paris and the Channel Tunnel, LGV Nord; French TGV technology was chosen as the basis for the new trains. An order for 30 trainsets, to be manufactured in France but with some British and Belgian components, was placed in December 1989. On 20 June 1993, the first Eurostar test train travelled through the tunnel to the UK.[10] Various technical difficulties in running the new trains on British tracks were quickly overcome.[11]
Launch of service
On 14 November 1994, Eurostar services began running from Waterloo International station in London, to Gare du Nord in Paris, and Brussels-South railway station in Brussels.[9][12][13] The train service started with a limited Discovery service; the full daily service started from 28 May 1995.[14]
In 1995, Eurostar was achieving an average end-to-end speed of 171.5 km/h (106.6 mph) from London to Paris.[15] On 8 January 1996, Eurostar launched services from a second railway station in the UK when Ashford International was opened.[16]
On 23 September 2003, passenger services began running on the first completed section of High Speed 1.[10] Following a high-profile glamorous opening ceremony[17] and a large advertising campaign,[18] on 14 November 2007, Eurostar services in London transferred from Waterloo to the extended and extensively refurbished St Pancras International.[19]
Records achieved
The Channel Tunnel used by Eurostar services holds the record for having the longest underwater section of any tunnel in the world,[20] and it is the second-longest railway tunnel in the world.[21]
On 30 July 2003, a Eurostar train set a new British speed record of 334.7 km/h (208.0 mph) on the first section of the "High Speed 1" railway between the Channel Tunnel,[10][12] and Fawkham Junction in north Kent, two months before official public services began running.
On 16 May 2006, Eurostar set a new record for the longest non-stop high-speed journey, a distance of 1,421 kilometres (883 mi) from London to Cannes taking 7 hours 25 minutes.[22]
On 4 September 2007, a record-breaking train left Paris Gare du Nord at 10:44 (09:44 BST) and reached London St Pancras in 2 hours 3 minutes 39 seconds;[23] carrying journalists and railway workers. This record trip was also the first passenger-carrying arrival to the new St Pancras International station.[24]
On 20 September 2007, Eurostar broke another record when it completed the journey from Brussels to London in 1 hour, 43 minutes.[25]
Regional Eurostar and Nightstar
The original proposals for Eurostar included direct services to Paris and Brussels from cities north of London (NoL): Manchester via Birmingham on the West Coast Main Line and on the East Coast Main Line Leeds and Glasgow via Edinburgh, Newcastle and York.[26] Seven 14-coach "NoL" Eurostar trains for these Regional Eurostar services were built, but these services never came to fruition. Predicted journey times of almost nine hours for Glasgow to Paris at the time of growth of low-cost air travel during the 1990s made the plans commercially unviable against the cheaper and quicker airlines.[27] Other reasons that have been suggested for these services having never been run were both government policies and the disruptive privatisation of British Rail.[28] Three of the Regional Eurostar units were leased by Great North Eastern Railway (GNER) to increase domestic services from London King's Cross to York and later Leeds.[29] The lease expired in December 2005, and most of the NoL sets have since been transferred to SNCF for TGV services in northern France.[30]
An international Nightstar sleeper train was also planned; this would have travelled the same routes as Regional Eurostar, plus the Great Western Main Line to Cardiff.[31] These were also deemed commercially unviable, and the scheme was abandoned with no services ever operated. In 2000, the coaches were sold to Via Rail in Canada.[32][33]
Ashford International station
Ashford International station was the original station for Eurostar services in Kent.[34] Once Ebbsfleet International railway station, also designed to serve the Kent region, had opened, only three trains a day to Paris and one to Disneyland Paris called at Ashford for a considerable amount of time. There were fears that services at Ashford International might be further reduced or withdrawn altogether as Eurostar planned to make Ebbsfleet the new regional hub instead.[35][36] However, after a period during which no Brussels trains served the station,[37] to the dissatisfaction of the local communities,[38][39][40] Eurostar re-introduced a single daily Ashford-Brussels service on 23 February 2009.[41][42]
Rules for cycles on trains
In 2015, Eurostar threatened to require that cyclists dismantle bicycles before they could be transported on the trains. Following criticism from Boris Johnson and cycling groups, Eurostar reversed the edict.[43]
Wi-Fi and onboard entertainment
By March 2016, onboard entertainment was provided by GoMedia, including Wi-Fi connectivity and up to 300 hours of movies and television kept on the train's servers and accessed using the passenger's own devices: mobile phones, tablets, laptops etc. A tracker app allows customers to see where they are
The London terminus is St Pancras International, the other British calling points are Ebbsfleet International and Ashford International in Kent. Intermediate calling points in France are Calais-Fréthun and Lille-Europe, with trains to Paris terminating at Gare du Nord. Trains to Belgium terminate at Midi/Zuid station in Brussels. The only intermediate calling station in the Netherlands is Rotterdam Centraal and trains terminate at Amsterdam Centraal. There are direct services from London to Disneyland Paris at Marne-la-Vallée – Chessy, direct services to southern France (Lyon, Avignon and Marseille), and seasonal direct services to the French Alps in winter (December to April).
The service is operated by eighteen-coach Class 373/1 trains and sixteen-coach Class 374 trains which run at up to 320 kilometres per hour (199 mph) on a network of high-speed lines. The LGV Nord line in France opened before Eurostar services began in 1994, and newer lines enabling faster journeys were added later—HSL 1 in Belgium and High Speed 1 in south-east England. The French and Belgian parts of the network are shared with Paris–Brussels Thalys services and TGV trains. In the United Kingdom the two-stage Channel Tunnel Rail Link project was completed on 14 November 2007 and renamed High Speed 1, when the London terminus of Eurostar moved from London Waterloo International to St Pancras International.
Until 2010, Eurostar was operated jointly by the national railway companies of France and Belgium, SNCF and SNCB/NMBS, and Eurostar (UK) Ltd (EUKL), a subsidiary of London and Continental Railways (LCR) that owned the high-speed infrastructure and stations on the British side. Eurostar has become the dominant operator on the routes it operates, carrying more passengers than all airlines combined. Other operators expressed an interest in starting competing services following deregulation in 2010. On 1 September 2010, Eurostar was incorporated as a single corporate entity, Eurostar International Limited (EIL), replacing the joint operation between EUKL, SNCF and SNCB/NMBS.[1] EIL is owned by SNCF (55%), Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec (CDPQ) (30%), Hermes Infrastructure (10%) and SNCB (5%).[2][3][4]
In June 2014, the UK shareholding in Eurostar International Limited was transferred from London and Continental Railways / Department for Transport to HM Treasury.[5] That October, it was announced that the UK government planned to raise £300 million by selling its stake.[6] In March 2015, the UK government announced that it would sell its 40% share to an Anglo-Canadian consortium made up of the Caisse and Hermes Infrastructure. The sale was completed in May 2015
The history of Eurostar can be traced to the 1986 choice of a rail tunnel to provide a cross-channel link between Britain and France.[7] A previous attempt to construct a tunnel between the two nations had begun in 1974, but was quickly aborted. Construction began on a new basis in 1988. Eurotunnel was created to manage and own the tunnel, which was finished in 1993, the official opening taking place on 6 May 1994.[8]
In addition to the tunnel's shuttle trains carrying cars and lorries between Folkestone and Calais, the decision to build a railway tunnel opened up the possibility of through passenger and freight train services between places further afield.[9] British Rail and SNCF contracted with Eurotunnel to use half the tunnel's capacity for this purpose. In 1987, Britain, France and Belgium set up an International Project Group to specify a train to provide an international high-speed passenger service through the tunnel. France had been operating high-speed TGV services since 1981, and had begun construction of a new high-speed line between Paris and the Channel Tunnel, LGV Nord; French TGV technology was chosen as the basis for the new trains. An order for 30 trainsets, to be manufactured in France but with some British and Belgian components, was placed in December 1989. On 20 June 1993, the first Eurostar test train travelled through the tunnel to the UK.[10] Various technical difficulties in running the new trains on British tracks were quickly overcome.[11]
Launch of service
On 14 November 1994, Eurostar services began running from Waterloo International station in London, to Gare du Nord in Paris, and Brussels-South railway station in Brussels.[9][12][13] The train service started with a limited Discovery service; the full daily service started from 28 May 1995.[14]
In 1995, Eurostar was achieving an average end-to-end speed of 171.5 km/h (106.6 mph) from London to Paris.[15] On 8 January 1996, Eurostar launched services from a second railway station in the UK when Ashford International was opened.[16]
On 23 September 2003, passenger services began running on the first completed section of High Speed 1.[10] Following a high-profile glamorous opening ceremony[17] and a large advertising campaign,[18] on 14 November 2007, Eurostar services in London transferred from Waterloo to the extended and extensively refurbished St Pancras International.[19]
Records achieved
The Channel Tunnel used by Eurostar services holds the record for having the longest underwater section of any tunnel in the world,[20] and it is the second-longest railway tunnel in the world.[21]
On 30 July 2003, a Eurostar train set a new British speed record of 334.7 km/h (208.0 mph) on the first section of the "High Speed 1" railway between the Channel Tunnel,[10][12] and Fawkham Junction in north Kent, two months before official public services began running.
On 16 May 2006, Eurostar set a new record for the longest non-stop high-speed journey, a distance of 1,421 kilometres (883 mi) from London to Cannes taking 7 hours 25 minutes.[22]
On 4 September 2007, a record-breaking train left Paris Gare du Nord at 10:44 (09:44 BST) and reached London St Pancras in 2 hours 3 minutes 39 seconds;[23] carrying journalists and railway workers. This record trip was also the first passenger-carrying arrival to the new St Pancras International station.[24]
On 20 September 2007, Eurostar broke another record when it completed the journey from Brussels to London in 1 hour, 43 minutes.[25]
Regional Eurostar and Nightstar
The original proposals for Eurostar included direct services to Paris and Brussels from cities north of London (NoL): Manchester via Birmingham on the West Coast Main Line and on the East Coast Main Line Leeds and Glasgow via Edinburgh, Newcastle and York.[26] Seven 14-coach "NoL" Eurostar trains for these Regional Eurostar services were built, but these services never came to fruition. Predicted journey times of almost nine hours for Glasgow to Paris at the time of growth of low-cost air travel during the 1990s made the plans commercially unviable against the cheaper and quicker airlines.[27] Other reasons that have been suggested for these services having never been run were both government policies and the disruptive privatisation of British Rail.[28] Three of the Regional Eurostar units were leased by Great North Eastern Railway (GNER) to increase domestic services from London King's Cross to York and later Leeds.[29] The lease expired in December 2005, and most of the NoL sets have since been transferred to SNCF for TGV services in northern France.[30]
An international Nightstar sleeper train was also planned; this would have travelled the same routes as Regional Eurostar, plus the Great Western Main Line to Cardiff.[31] These were also deemed commercially unviable, and the scheme was abandoned with no services ever operated. In 2000, the coaches were sold to Via Rail in Canada.[32][33]
Ashford International station
Ashford International station was the original station for Eurostar services in Kent.[34] Once Ebbsfleet International railway station, also designed to serve the Kent region, had opened, only three trains a day to Paris and one to Disneyland Paris called at Ashford for a considerable amount of time. There were fears that services at Ashford International might be further reduced or withdrawn altogether as Eurostar planned to make Ebbsfleet the new regional hub instead.[35][36] However, after a period during which no Brussels trains served the station,[37] to the dissatisfaction of the local communities,[38][39][40] Eurostar re-introduced a single daily Ashford-Brussels service on 23 February 2009.[41][42]
Rules for cycles on trains
In 2015, Eurostar threatened to require that cyclists dismantle bicycles before they could be transported on the trains. Following criticism from Boris Johnson and cycling groups, Eurostar reversed the edict.[43]
Wi-Fi and onboard entertainment
By March 2016, onboard entertainment was provided by GoMedia, including Wi-Fi connectivity and up to 300 hours of movies and television kept on the train's servers and accessed using the passenger's own devices: mobile phones, tablets, laptops etc. A tracker app allows customers to see where they are
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