"Anthony Hunt described the trusses as ""banana shaped"". Curved, tapering trusses were later used to great effect at Kirklees Stadium in Huddersfield. The first Eurostar departure, on 14 November 1994, was formed of Eurostar units 373004/373003 and the last service left at 18.12 GMT on 13 November 2007 for Brussels. From the next day Eurostar services used their new London terminus of St Pancras International. Ownership of Waterloo International station passed to BRB (Residuary) Ltd., with no clear plans for the future use of the Eurostar platforms. Some reports had suggested that they might be used for shops, but a"
"for the longest non-stop high-speed journey, a distance of from London to Cannes taking 7 hours 25 minutes. 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; carrying journalists and railway workers. This record trip was also the first passenger-carrying arrival to the new St Pancras International station. On 20 September 2007, Eurostar broke another record when it completed the journey from Brussels to London in 1 hour, 43 minutes. The original proposals for Eurostar included direct services to Paris and"
"Eurostar station is only staffed for part of the day. International services started on 8 January 1996. Before the completion of High Speed 1 in November 2007, twelve Eurostar trains a day called, heading to Paris (7 trains) or Brussels (5). However this number was reduced because of the opening of Ebbsfleet International station to 2 or 3 trains to/from Paris and a daily service to Disneyland Paris. A direct train for Brussels was reinstated in 2009. From May 2015 a service to Marseille runs up to five times a week. Seasonal Ski trains also run at weekends in the"
"Rennes, Lille, Nantes, Limoges, Toulouse, Montpellier, Orléans, Grenoble and Brussels. On 29 June 1996, Eurostar began direct services from London to Disneyland Paris. Marne-la-Vallée–Chessy is also the rail head used for Paris by Ouigo services. Passengers can travel by TGV from Charles de Gaulle Airport TGV station to this station in less than 10 minutes. The station has a UK National Rail station code of MCK because it is part of the Eurostar network, despite Eurostar not being part of National Rail. From Marne-la-Vallée–Chessy, train services depart to major French cities such as Lyon, Marseille, Nice, Montpellier, Perpignan, Lille and"
"European Passenger Services (EPS), as the division of British Rail responsible for the UK section of the Eurostar operation. Eurostar trains began operating on 14 November 1994, with EPS, NMBS/SNCB and SNCF were each responsible for the running of Eurostar services in their own territory. On 1 April 1994, EPS signed a fixed-rate track access contract with Railtrack lasting until 29 July 2052 as part of the plans for Regional Eurostar services. The privatisation of British Rail saw ownership of EPS transferred to London and Continental Railways (LCR) in 1996, which is a property development company owned by the Government"
"Eurostar Eurostar is a high-speed railway service connecting London with Amsterdam, Avignon, Brussels, Lille, Lyon, Marseille, Paris and Rotterdam. All its trains traverse 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 being 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 point in the Netherlands is Rotterdam Centraal, with trains terminating at"
"regular-service Eurostar journeys on record are 2 hours, 3 minutes and 39 seconds from Paris Gare du Nord to St Pancras, set on 4 September 2007; and 1 hour 43 minutes from Brussels South to St Pancras, set on 19 September 2007. Domestic high-speed services on High Speed 1 are operated by Southeastern. Having been in planning since 2004, a preview service of the British Rail Class 395 trains, popularly known as ""Javelins"", started in June 2009, and regular services began on 13 December 2009. The quickest journey time from Ashford to London St Pancras is 35 minutes, compared with"
"For travellers from the United Kingdom to destinations not served directly by Eurostar, connections are available here on trains towards Disneyland Paris, Charles de Gaulle International Airport, Lyon, Valence, then Avignon, Aix-en-Provence, Marseille St. Charles (and also on to Cannes and Nice); and Nîmes, Montpellier and Perpignan. The following services call at Lille Europe: Since 23 July 2012, SNCF's international coach network, Ouibus, serves Lille Europe. Coach services from Lille are: Gare de Lille Europe Lille Europe is a SNCF railway station in Lille, France, on the LGV Nord High Speed railway. The station is primarily used for Eurostar and"
"Eurostar is the convenience and speed of the service: with shorter check-in times than at most airports and hence quicker boarding and less queueing and high punctuality, it takes less time to travel between central London and central Paris by high-speed rail than by air. Eurostar now has a dominant share of the combined rail–air market on its routes to Paris and Brussels. In 2004, it had a 66% share of the London–Paris market, and a 59% share of the London–Brussels market. In 2007, it achieved record market shares of 71% for London–Paris and 65% for London–Brussels routes. Eurostar's passenger"
"Amsterdam Centraal. In addition, there are limited services from London to Disneyland Paris at Marne-la-Vallée – Chessy, direct services to southern France (Lyon, Avignon and Marseille) from May to September (launched on 1 May 2015), and seasonal direct services to the French Alps in winter (December to April). The service is operated by eighteen-car Class 373/1 trains and sixteen-car trains which run at up to 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"
"Summer 2014 timetable, there are up to five Eurostar services to Paris on Mondays to Fridays, up to four on Saturdays and three on Sundays. Most of these services run non-stop from Ebbsfleet to Paris, though some also stop at Ashford en route. There are four trains to Brussels on Mondays to Fridays, three on Saturdays and two on Sundays. All Brussels services call at Lille and some also call at Calais. There is also a return service on most days to Marne-la-Vallée for the Disneyland Paris resort, which also calls at Ashford and Lille (in the France-bound direction only)."
"Regional Eurostar Regional Eurostar was the name given to plans to operate Eurostar train services from Paris and Brussels to locations in the United Kingdom beyond London. The services would have been run using a fleet of seven ""North of London"", 14-coach British Rail Class 373/2 trainsets. When the Channel Tunnel was first announced in the 1980s, it was part of the proposals to operate high-speed rail services through it on both sides of the English Channel with a substantial network envisaged. This was gradually reduced to a core service, along dedicated TGV-style high-speed lines, between the three capital cities,"
"and the French train from Dunkirk to Paris, conveyed normal second class coaches of their own railway. The passengers travelling by these walked on and off the ship in the standard way. In addition the British train conveyed one of a pair of standard Mk 1 Brake Composite carriages, which had been modified with a French-style gangway connection at one end. This provided the guard's compartment in Britain and enabled the guard to walk through the train. Until the Eurostar service began on 14 November 1994, the Night Ferry had been the only through passenger train between Great Britain and"
"6 April 1996, Berlin-Grunewald station for Eurailspeed 1998, Madrid Chamartín railway station for Eurailspeed 2002 and at the York National Railway Museum for the Railfest 200 celebrations in 2004. To celebrate ten years of Eurostar service, a barge was floated down the River Thames in London on 16 November 2004, with a power car on board, specially painted by Ben Langlands and Nikki Bell. Named """"Language of Places on Eurostar"""" by Langlands and Bell, it consisted of the three-letter ""destination codes for all the places where Eurostar goes or connects"". The barge went under Tower Bridge, past the Houses of"
"1 and was opened to the public on 14 November 2007. The HS1 line was finished on time and under budget. The reduction in journey times and increase in reliability achieved through the opening of Section 1 enabled Eurostar to capture 71% of the total London–Paris market and over 80% of the leisure market and Section 2 has increased these figures further. Additionally, the connections provided to the WCML, MML and ECML by Section 2 may see growth of hitherto marginal markets, by finally allowing Regional Eurostars to operate, at least on the electrified ECML and WCML. Eurostar's chief executive"
"opening in 1994. This has enabled Eurostar rail services to travel at for this part of their journey. A similar high-speed line in Belgium, from the French border to Brussels, HSL 1, opened in 1997. In Britain, Eurostar trains had to run at a maximum of on existing tracks between London Waterloo and the Channel Tunnel. These tracks were shared with local traffic, limiting the number of services that could be run, and jeopardising reliability. The case for a high-speed line similar to the continental part of the route was recognised by policymakers, and the construction of the line was"
"initial estimate of £310 million. In early November 2007, Eurostar conducted a testing programme in which some 6000 members of the public were involved in passenger check-in, immigration control and departure trials, during which the ""passengers"" each made three return journeys out of St Pancras to the entrance to the London tunnel. On 4 September 2007, the first test train ran from Paris Gare du Nord to St Pancras. Children's illustrator Quentin Blake was commissioned to provide a huge mural of an ""imaginary welcoming committee"" as a disguise for one of the remaining ramshackle Stanley Building South immediately opposite the"
"opened on 6 May 1994. Key parts of the project were a passenger rail service through the tunnel, dubbed Eurostar, and the building of a new high-speed railway on the British side, the 109-kilometre (68 mile) Channel Tunnel Rail Link (CTRL), to link the tunnel to London. With the CTRL still at the planning stage, Eurostar trains began operating on 14 November 1994 over the existing railway, with operations on the British sections of the track being done by European Passenger Services (EPS), a subsidiary set up by British Rail. To manage construction of the CTRL, British Rail had also"
"1994 to 2007 by Eurostar trains running out of 'London Waterloo International' requiring trains in this period to have a shoegear to run off the line's third rail DC electrification, following which the Central London terminus for direct European services became . Several companies had proposed building a faster and heavy goods reliable link from London to the South Coast around Southampton, which would have provided not only a route for commodities and passengers but one for munitions and military personnel in the event of war. At the time, Southampton was smaller than the nearby port of Portsmouth, but since"
"Eurostar, which operates services through the Channel Tunnel to the United Kingdom, cancelled all its services to and from Brussels, but continued to operate its services between London and Paris and between London and Lille, the latter with delays. A skeleton service of three Eurostar trains a day in each direction between London and Brussels resumed on 22 February. The trains were diverted via Ghent, causing the journey time to be lengthened. The full timetabled service resumed on Monday 1 March, two weeks after the accident. According to data from Infrabel, the accident caused 1,109 trains to be completely cancelled"
"3 hours. In 1997, a dedicated high-speed line to Brussels, HSL 1, was opened. In 2007, High Speed 1, the Channel Tunnel Rail Link to London, was completed after a partial opening in 2003. All three lines were built to the French LGV standards, including electrification at 25 kV. Passenger trains built to specific safety standards are operated by Eurostar through the Channel Tunnel. Direct trains now travel from London St. Pancras to Paris in 2h15, and to Brussels in 1h51. On 1 May 2015 Eurostar introduced a weekly service from London to Lyon, Avignon and Marseille. Thalys high-speed international"
"as boat trains, such as the ""Admiraal de Ruijter"" to Amsterdam and the ""Night Ferry"" to Paris and Brussels. The opening of the Channel Tunnel in 1994 connected London directly to the continental rail network, allowing Eurostar services to begin. Since 2007, high-speed trains link St. Pancras International with Lille, Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam and other European tourist destinations via the High Speed 1 rail link and the Channel Tunnel. The first high-speed domestic trains started in June 2009 linking Kent to London. There are plans for a second high speed line linking London to the Midlands, North West England, and"
"Lille. The end of 2014 saw testing of one set on the LGV Est due to its higher line speed of 320 km/h. The French Railway Safety Board (EPSF) granted an authorisation to run the train in France on 16 October 2015; the approval for operating though the Channel Tunnel was granted on 19 November by the Intergovernmental Commission (IGC). At the beginning of January 2016 the Belgian authority SSICF authorized the operation in its country. Eurostar intend to use the trains to expand its core operation between London St Pancras International, Paris Gare du Nord and Brussels Midi/Zuid. To"
"meet the prospect of increased competition through the Channel Tunnel (primarily from DB), it intends to use them to expand its network to Amsterdam, Frankfurt and Cologne, and more destinations in France. In September 2013, Eurostar announced that its new service between London and Amsterdam, intended to begin operation in December 2016, would be operated by the trains. In April 2016 Eurostar said that the Amsterdam service was now planned to operate from late 2017. The first Class 374 set entered service in November 2015, ahead of the full launch of the new type; the receipt of the safety authorization"
"and Belgian high-speed lines. Non-stop journey times were reduced by a further 20 minutes to 2 hours 15 minutes for London–Paris and 1 hour 51 minutes for London–Brussels. Eurostar offers up to sixteen weekday London – Paris services (eighteen on Fridays) including ten non-stop (twelve on Fridays). Previously there were ten London–Lille and Brussels services, including five running non-stop as far as Lille, but this has now been reduced to seven each way. In addition, there is a return trip from London to Marne-la-Vallée - Chessy for Disneyland Paris, which runs at least 4 times a week with increased frequency"
"winter months to Bourg-Saint-Maurice in the French Alps. It is not permitted to use Eurostar services for domestic journeys to and from London; however, a high-speed domestic service operated by Southeastern to London St Pancras began on 29 June 2009. This link has allowed Ashford to become a commuter town to London. The international part of the station has bilingual signs, both in French and English. In 2018, it was announced that the international platforms would be undergoing a £10m refurbishment to make them compatible with Eurostar's units branded as Eurostar e320, as well as allowing other operators to use"
"on the 20th and 21st, causing minor traffic disruption. Manchester Airport was heavily disrupted late on the 20th, closed at 7.10am on the 21st, but opened later that morning after much heavy work clearing the snow off of the runways. Flights were still disrupted by midday. A Eurostar train, with between 700, 740 and 800 passengers on board, broke down in Kent due to the extremely cold weather and heavy snow in the United Kingdom. The Paris-to-London service eventually left Gare du Nord railway station in Paris two hours late at about 8.15pm UK time after an unattended bag caused"
"the domestic signalling systems used by Nederlandse Spoorwegen. Following the December 2009 opening of HSL Zuid, a London–Amsterdam journey is estimated to take 4 hr 16 min. In an interview with Eurostar's Chief Executive Nicolas Petrovic in the ""Financial Times"" in May 2012, an intention for Eurostar to serve ten new destinations was expressed, including Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Cologne, Lyon, Marseille and Geneva, along with a likely second hub to be created in Brussels. In March 2016 in an interview with Bloomberg, Eurostar's Chief Executive expressed interest in operating a direct train service between London and Bordeaux, but not before 2019."
"during school holidays, and an up-to-5-times-a-week service to Marseille via Lyon and Avignon. There are also seasonal services in the winter. ""Snow trains"", aimed at skiers, to Bourg-Saint-Maurice, Aime-la-Plagne and Moûtiers in the Alps; these run twice-weekly, one overnight and one during the daytime. Intermediate stations are Ebbsfleet International in northwest Kent, Ashford International in southeast Kent, and Calais-Fréthun and Lille-Europe in Nord-Pas-de-Calais. In February 2018, Eurostar announced the start of its long planned service from London to Amsterdam, with an initial two trains per day from April of that year running between St Pancras and Amsterdam Centraal. This launched"
"out. Eurostar added special services on the evening of 19 December to transport ""vulnerable passengers"" between London, Paris and Brussels. However, a service from Paris became the sixth train to break down after becoming stuck near Ebbsfleet, Kent. The cause of the breakdowns was unclear; Eurostar initially blamed the sudden contrast between freezing temperatures above ground and the heat of the tunnel, which affected the high-speed engines. On 20 December in the Netherlands, the Royal Dutch Meteorological Institute (KNMI) issued an official weather alarm for the entire country following heavy snowfall () in the west, which eventually spread to the"
"be replaced by one directly linked to the Channel Tunnel Rail Link. On 14 November 2007 Eurostar moved its London terminus from Waterloo International station to St Pancras railway station and maintenance simultaneously moved to a new site at Temple Mills near Stratford International. Potential re-use by conventional UK rail operators was limited to its electric trains equipment being unsuitable for general and diesel train operations; the site lacked an overhead crane, turntables, fuelling facilities and it lacked a connection to the GWML. In 2009 Agility Trains was listed as the preferred bidder for the Intercity Express Programme high speed"
"as a one-way service, with return trains carrying passengers to Rotterdam and Brussels Midi/Zuid, making a 28-minute stop (which has not been deemed long enough to process UK-bound passengers) and then carrying different passengers from Brussels to London. Passengers travelling back must take Thalys services to Brussels Midi/Zuid where they can join the Eurostar. This is owing to the lack of UK Border Force facilities at Amsterdam Centraal and Rotterdam Centraal. Since 14 November 2007, all Eurostar trains have been routed via High Speed 1 to or from the redeveloped London terminus at St Pancras International, which at a cost"
"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. Various technical difficulties in running the new trains on British"