[neil_s_wood]

This BBC article has details of the new high speed Eurostar service.

Eurostar is set to make its inaugural journey from Paris to London via a new 186mph (300km/h) high-speed line.
The train - carrying members of the media - will also arrive into St Pancras International station, instead of Waterloo, for the first time.

The new line is expected to cut journey times from Paris to London by 20 minutes to 2hr 15min. It will open to the public on 14 November.

Eurostar to achieve higher speeds in UK

At last we can travel the same speeds in the UK as they can in Europe. Between London and the Channel Tunnel anyway.

I wonder how long it will be before we can travel to Glasgow or Edinburgh at these speeds?

 

[7113]

I caught this story on Meridian news last night, with any luck we'll be seeing some sensible footage on the national and local news programmes tonight.

Just checked the BBC site - it appears that the time was 2 hours 3 minutes and 39 seconds - congratulations to all at Eurostar.

Regards

 

[goedel]

QUOTE (neil_s_wood @ 4 Sep 2007, 06:43) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>I wonder how long it will be before we can travel to Glasgow or Edinburgh at these speeds?
In about 2107 the way things are going! There are an awful lot of French, German, Spanish, Japanese etc. people yawning at this news, in a "been there, done that, commuted to work every day at these speeds for the last twenty years AND for a quarter of the price, sort of way...I think it is disgraceful.

Goedel

 

[dwb]

We've just booked a couple of tickets on Eurostar /but/ they're for October so we'll still be travelling from Waterloo and the journey time will be 2:40 and not the faster 2:20 from St. Pancras. But it's actually easier for us to get Waterloo than St. Pancras so we're not that upset about it.

David

 

[dwb]

QUOTE with any luck we'll be seeing some sensible footage on the national and local news programmes tonight.

There are 3 news videos on the BBC website and 3 or 4 text articles as well. All in all a fair bit of coverage.

David

 

[neil_s_wood]

QUOTE (dwb @ 5 Sep 2007, 03:33) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>We've just booked a couple of tickets on Eurostar /but/ they're for October so we'll still be travelling from Waterloo and the journey time will be 2:40 and not the faster 2:20 from St. Pancras. But it's actually easier for us to get Waterloo than St. Pancras so we're not that upset about it.

David
Reminds me of one of my big regrets,

Way back in 1997 while I was still living in London I managed to get return tickets for Paris on the Eurostar. These departed London at around 7-8:00 am so I had to get up at 6:00 to get to Waterloo on time. It was October and raining and I just couldn't drag myself out of bed. Boy am I kicking myself now.

 

[dwb]

Now the London / Brussels rail travel record has fallen to the newly completed St. Pancras link. Read more here on the BBC website.

David

 

[Ravenser]

Eurostars already can and do reach speeds of 187mph - the first part of CTRL from the tunnel to just south of the Thames estuary has been open for about 3 years

What is now opening is the final stage from just south of Gravesend , under the Thames in tunnel, parallel with the LTS from Purlfeet to Dagenham , then in a 10 mile tunnel (cleared for 125mph) from Dagenham to St Pancras , with an intermediate station at Stratford.

I know CTRL is normally dismissed as pretty small beer , but from the French portal to St Pancras is 105 miles of extremely heavy engineering , including 4 long tunnels (Channel Tunnel, 26 miles, London Tunnel 10 miles, Thames tunnel 4 miles; N Downs tunnel 2 miles) a large viaduct over the Medway, and 4 major stations (St Pancras , Stratford, Ebbsfeet, Ashford)

To find another major route as heavily engineered as this you have to look at the transalpine tunnels in Switzerland . And I'm not sure even the Gotthard route has more engineering , over a longer distance, than St Pancras /Calais-Frethun. Certainly there is nothing comparable to these engineering works on the French LGV network , most of which sticks to open country and lets the gradient profile take the strain

Apparently the first of the 125mph Javelin commuter EMUs for CTRL are now in the country and begining tests on the 3rd rail network