Eurostar Disney Direct services 2023

[alex397]

I can certainly understand Eurostar’s position with this, not that I think they are a perfect company. It is the UK government that is the main issue here, with seemingly no interest in supporting train services to the continent. There should be more financial support and they should be proactively coming up with solutions for the border control issues - but I really don’t think they will under this current government.

 

[cle]

Maybe the Disney train will never come back. But if it means Eurostar to Paris and Brussels stays strong to me that's an acceptable sacrifice. 1tp2h to Amsterdam should be a higher priority than a handful of trains per day to Disney imho

Completely agree on this. Amsterdam has huge potential (plus Brussels business traffic is dwindling) - business, leisure, and everything in between. Amsterdam is booming in every sector. Rotterdam is significant too.

Could journey times be shortened more?

Plus those investments in people and station modifications has already been made, so best to eke out as much value from them as possible. Disney was always 1tpd and so without those economies of scale.

 

[30907]

That's absolutely ridiculous. Eurostar should be sending at least one train every hour towards Paris and one towards Brussels!

1tph towards Paris is basically the offer now. 1tph to Brussels has never been provided even before Brexit.
More to the point, the station capacity is equivalent to 5 trains in 3 hours.

Even more ridiculous. For the huge amounts spent on HS1 and St Pancras in particular, there's absolutely no reason not to train the amount of Border Force staff needed.

Sorry, how does the capital investment already made pay for staff now?

 

[MarcVD]

Gents, I hope that you will pardon me for being somewhat controversial here, but didn't you just get what you deserved ?

During the covid crisis, Eurostar asked for help and the UK government turned them down, saying that Eurostar was not a UK company, did not provide any essential service, and therefore did not deserve any help. This view was shared by a large percentage of the UK public.

Is it not normal that in those conditions Eurostar decided to focus on EU needs first and let UK ones slip behind ? Nobody in France, Belgium, or the Netherlands is interested in traveling to Ashford or Ebbsfleet. London to Disneyland, the Alps, or the French riviera, is a pure UK market. All of that is way less profitable than the traffic between the four capitals because it requires lots of extra investment for very little return. Probably the 4 capitals market even subsidized the Disneyland and Kent ones. So, maybe not a pure retaliation act but don't expect them to go the extra mile for the UK market after having been treated like that...

 

[zwk500]

Gents, I hope that you will pardon me for being somewhat controversial here, but didn't you just get what you deserved ?

This is a very generalised statement considering the extremely broad range of views on this board.

 

[WizCastro197]

Gents,

It isn't just men on this forum?


Many Families may choose to car it instead on Training it. May be too stressful for young kids by train and parents!
Perhaps as children get older (those few who still enjoy Disneyland) may decide to take train but Eurostar is expensive.

 

[alex397]

Gents, I hope that you will pardon me for being somewhat controversial here, but didn't you just get what you deserved ?

I’m going to speculate that the majority of Eurostar users probably did not vote for Brexit.

 

[ic250]

Gents, I hope that you will pardon me for being somewhat controversial here, but didn't you just get what you deserved ?

During the covid crisis, Eurostar asked for help and the UK government turned them down, saying that Eurostar was not a UK company, did not provide any essential service, and therefore did not deserve any help. This view was shared by a large percentage of the UK public.

Is it not normal that in those conditions Eurostar decided to focus on EU needs first and let UK ones slip behind ? Nobody in France, Belgium, or the Netherlands is interested in traveling to Ashford or Ebbsfleet. London to Disneyland, the Alps, or the French riviera, is a pure UK market. All of that is way less profitable than the traffic between the four capitals because it requires lots of extra investment for very little return. Probably the 4 capitals market even subsidized the Disneyland and Kent ones. So, maybe not a pure retaliation act but don't expect them to go the extra mile for the UK market after having been treated like that...

Completely agree with this. And also to add to the insanity of this, the decision to sell the HS1 concession in November 2010 to a pension fund (almost certainly the reason why track access charges are 3x what they are in France for a much newer and shorter piece of infrastructure).

And the decision in 2015 to sell the original BR stake in Eurostar.

If we want to have a low-carbon alternative to international air travel in continental Europe we can, but we need to have some joined up policy thinking to facilitate this. The British Government's approach to this - just like its approach to everything - has been incredibly short-sighted, short-termist, and these reductions in service are one of the results.

 

[biko]

No clue whether the dutch government did anything, but I wouldn't call it out of character for them to have failed massively too.

Not directly as the Dutch government is not a shareholder of Eurostar. However, the Eurostar services are now part of the main railway network franchise (Hoofdrailnet) between Amsterdam and the Dutch-Belgian border. The government did give subsidies to NS so also partly for the Eurostar services on Dutch soil.

 

[Bald Rick]

And also to add to the insanity of this, the decision to sell the HS1 concession in November 2010 to a pension fund (almost certainly the reason why track access charges are 3x what they are in France for a much newer and shorter piece of infrastructure).

The ownership of HS1 is not a factor in the access charges. The charges are regulated (I.e. set) by the ORR.

 

[JustPassingBy]

The ownership of HS1 is not a factor in the access charges. The charges are regulated (I.e. set) by the ORR.

It would be interesting to see how the access charges have changed since HS1 was sold. You may be correct, but equally, in the UK there is a trend of regulatory bodies being overly close to business and generally putting business interests ahead of the consumer and other considerations such as the environment. As an obvious topical example, the energy price-cap has protected UK consumers far less than has been the case in other European countries.

 

[zwk500]

It would be interesting to see how the access charges have changed since HS1 was sold. You may be correct, but equally, in the UK there is a trend of regulatory bodies being overly close to business and generally putting business interests ahead of the consumer and other considerations such as the environment. As an obvious topical example, the energy price-cap has protected UK consumers far less than has been the case in other European countries.

Data going back to 2016 is available here: https://highspeed1.co.uk/regulatory/access-new-operators

 

[Mag_seven]

Eurostar have announced that they will not be running their direct service to Disney from June 5th 2023.

Thread reopened for @island

 

[island]

Thank you @Mag_seven .

The final service on this route is due to be Monday's train 9057 the 18:03 from Marne-la-Vallée–Chessy to London St Pancras arriving 19:27.

Eurostar's website and publicity maintain it is "suspended until the end of the year". I have to say I think the chance of a return in 2024, or at any other time, is very small. There will be a great temptation for Marne-la-Vallée–Chessy and London St Pancras stations to remove and decommission the station infrastructure that was used to support only these services. Drivers and train chefs will go out of route knowledge. The route never made a lot of money for Eurostar, carrying mainly passengers on rock-bottom ITX tickets sold by Disney, not operating the lucrative Business Premier coach, carrying extremely cost-conscious passengers who had a low propensity to spend on ancillaries such as onboard food & drink, and needing a dozen staff at Marne-la-Vallée–Chessy.

Passengers for Marne-la-Vallée–Chessy will be able to transfer at Lille onto TGV (and perhaps in the future Eurostar-Thalys) services, or can book to Gare du Nord and take the RER local train.

 

[zwk500]

Thank you @Mag_seven .

The final service on this route is due to be Monday's train 9057 the 18:03 from Marne-la-Vallée–Chessy to London St Pancras arriving 19:27.

Eurostar's website and publicity maintain it is "suspended until the end of the year". I have to say I think the chance of a return in 2024, or at any other time, is very small.

I agree

There will be a great temptation for Marne-la-Vallée–Chessy and London St Pancras stations to remove and decommission the station infrastructure that was used to support only these services.

The whole point of this service is that there isn't any station infrastructure in France, and the London infrastructure is a home office requirement. So there's no savings to be had there.

Drivers and train chefs will go out of route knowledge.

Is route knowledge not quite different on LGVs, such that as long as the guard has the documentation to refer to the operating rules and such are all standardised and they can accept being routed that way without needing to have the line on their card?

The route never made a lot of money for Eurostar, carrying mainly passengers on rock-bottom ITX tickets sold by Disney, not operating the lucrative Business Premier coach, carrying extremely cost-conscious passengers who had a low propensity to spend on ancillaries such as onboard food & drink, and needing a dozen staff at Marne-la-Vallée–Chessy.

Passengers for Marne-la-Vallée–Chessy will be able to transfer at Lille onto TGV (and perhaps in the future Eurostar-Thalys) services, or can book to Gare du Nord and take the RER local train.

This is the key part - it wasn't a massive money spinner by the end of it (you can fly easily enough to CDG and get the local transport in), and it's just awkward to operate.

 

[island]

The whole point of this service is that there isn't any station infrastructure in France, and the London infrastructure is a home office requirement. So there's no savings to be had there.

But there is station infrastructure in Marne-la-Vallée–Chessy. On the top floor of the station are passport booths, baggage x-rays, walk through metal detectors, customs facilities (for tax refunds for departing passengers and control of non-EU arrivals). On the 1st floor is a separate (Spartan) waiting area and separate toilets. In St. Pancras there are passport control booths on the arrivals flow, and a separate waiting area for passengers arriving on train 9057. All of these could be decommissioned; there might not be a lot of savings but X-ray machines and metal detectors etc. need maintenance, the passport control equipment could be redeployed to another port, etc.

Is route knowledge not quite different on LGVs, such that as long as the guard has the documentation to refer to the operating rules and such are all standardised and they can accept being routed that way without needing to have the line on their card?

I will leave that question to someone more knowledgeable than I!

This is the key part - it wasn't a massive money spinner by the end of it (you can fly easily enough to CDG and get the local transport in), and it's just awkward to operate.

I run a Disneyland Paris Facebook group of about 85,000 members and the vast majority of people we surveyed who used to use Eurostar will still use it; very few will migrate to plane. The mothballing of Ebbsfleet and Ashford was far more injurious to passenger numbers than the canning of 9074 and 9057.

 

[zwk500]

But there is station infrastructure in Marne-la-Vallée–Chessy. On the top floor of the station are passport booths, baggage x-rays, walk through metal detectors, customs facilities (for tax refunds for departing passengers and control of non-EU arrivals). On the 1st floor is a separate (Spartan) waiting area and separate toilets. In St. Pancras there are passport control booths on the arrivals flow, and a separate waiting area for passengers arriving on train 9057. All of these could be decommissioned; there might not be a lot of savings but X-ray machines and metal detectors etc. need maintenance, the passport control equipment could be redeployed to another port, etc.

My mistake, I had assumed that there weren't serious checks for returning passengers. However moving it to somewhere else would be a question for the French authorities, I'm fairly sure Eurostar just pay the operating costs.

I run a Disneyland Paris Facebook group of about 85,000 members and the vast majority of people we surveyed who used to use Eurostar will still use it; very few will migrate to plane. The mothballing of Ebbsfleet and Ashford was far more injurious to passenger numbers than the canning of 9074 and 9057.

Of course of those who use the train the majority will want to continue using it - there are many reasons people don't want to fly. But how many UK visitors to Disneyland used the train and how many used other methods?

A 2015 Daily Mail article (I hate it but it's a source) estimates 2.1m UK visitors to Disneyland Paris. In 2008 they were running 2 services a day, assume in 2015 this still held with e320s capable of taking 900 people, and that every passenger is doing a return trip, that's 1,600 passengers a day, or 580,000 a year - about 25% of the visitors from the UK. Perhaps more pertinent is the fact that Eurostar carried over 1bn passengers in 2015, so Disneyland formed 0.06% of it's Business in that year.

Eurostar are keeping the Ski trains though (or so SkiTravel seem to think!), so operational experience beyond Paris via LGV interconnexion Est is maintained if they ever decide to restart the Disneyland route in future, and noise was made about Avignon and Bordeaux when the Eurostar group merger happened so future expansion is not impossible. IIRC they've confirmed the Kent stations won't be until 2025 at the earliest, which as you say is a big problem for the holiday travellers with big cases and children in tow who presumably found driving far preferable to trekking into St Pancs.

 

[island]

A 2015 Daily Mail article (I hate it but it's a source) estimates 2.1m UK visitors to Disneyland Paris. In 2008 they were running 2 services a day, assume in 2015 this still held with e320s capable of taking 900 people, and that every passenger is doing a return trip, that's 1,600 passengers a day, or 580,000 a year - about 25% of the visitors from the UK. Perhaps more pertinent is the fact that Eurostar carried over 1bn passengers in 2015, so Disneyland formed 0.06% of it's Business in that year.

Much less, in fact; the service was usually running with a class 373, and four return services per week. I expect the most common method of travel is private car. Planes and Eurostar could follow in either order.

Eurostar are keeping the Ski trains though (or so SkiTravel seem to think!), so operational experience beyond Paris via LGV interconnexion Est is maintained if they ever decide to restart the Disneyland route in future

That's a good point. As far as I'm aware they are still intent on keeping the ski services running, they carry much more high-spending passengers.

IIRC they've confirmed the Kent stations won't be until 2025 at the earliest, which as you say is a big problem for the holiday travellers with big cases and children in tow who presumably found driving far preferable to trekking into St Pancs.

Yes, there were plenty of people who would drive halfway across England to park in Ebbsfleet and get the Eurostar there, some still do but then have to get a 395 and double-back on themselves. Not hugely attractive.

 

[zwk500]

Much less, in fact; the service was usually running with a class 373, and four return services per week. I expect the most common method of travel is private car. Planes and Eurostar could follow in either order.

Well 4 of 14 is less than 1/3rd, so you're looking at somewhere around 10% of Disneyland passengers by rail, but less than 0.02% of Eurostar's business.

That's a good point. As far as I'm aware they are still intent on keeping the ski services running, they carry much more high-spending passengers.

Yep, rather different crowd for the booze ski trains.

Yes, there were plenty of people who would drive halfway across England to park in Ebbsfleet and get the Eurostar there, some still do but then have to get a 395 and double-back on themselves. Not hugely attractive.

Yes, I can see the attraction of driving to Ebbsfleet and leaving the car there, but having to trek back in on the Javelin would be a definite off-putting factor if I was going on a week or 2's holiday with the family. I hope Ebbsfleet at least does reopen in 2025, although I would be very nervous about Ashford's future unless Politicians are prepared to get their elbows out properly.

 

[Freemo]

I used this train a couple of times and about half the load came from Ashford and Ebbsfleet on those. It was a lovely option to have if you lived on the MML to avoid CDG airport. Still doable of course but sitting in the waiting area at Lille after doing the same at St Pancras isn't particularly appealing. It's also a pricey way to get to an already injuriously pricey destination.

 

[island]

Lille is fine. A lot better than Gare du Nord which is a total dive.

 

[Freemo]

I was thinking of the Eurostar waiting area which doesn't have much in it, although thinking about it you'd be changing onto a TGV so presumably be going up to the main concourse which is fine.

 

[BluePenguin]

Lille is fine. A lot better than Gare du Nord which is a total dive.

Why don’t you like it? It has a nice open plan feeling downstairs. Is the waiting area very small then?

 

[zwk500]

Why don’t you like it? It has a nice open plan feeling downstairs. Is the waiting area very small then?

The Eurostar terminal at Gare Du Nord is rather cramped, although I quite like it as it's quite long and you get a good view across the tracks (if you like that). It's also annoying that they send you quite far to the opposite side of the station to join the queue.
The area around Gare du Nord is also quite grotty and suffers quite badly from petty crime (pickpockets, tourist scams, begging, that sort of thing), so if you've come from Disneyland (kids, bags, etc) you may not want to risk the RER (which has it's own pickpocket issue) and hanging around Nord for a bit waiting for the check-in to open.

 

[jon0844]

The Eurostar departures at Gare Du Nord (once you clear security etc) is nice in that you can go to the far end, and most people never get that far - as such if you want to sit and read/view your phone/work or just chill then it's nicer than St Pancras where it can be hard to get a seat.

The area seems to have been cleaned up a lot in the last year, not only inside and immediately outside the station but also the surrounding streets. Not that I'm volunteering to walk around at 3am...

I do think some people will be put off going to Disneyland Paris if there's no direct service. I went one year direct there and indirect back, and we had delays on the return service that caused us to miss our booked Eurostar service. We were put on the next train without any fuss, but with a young child it was a bit stressful. It's so convenient to have a direct train that I'm surprised Disneyland Paris didn't consider a contribution towards the cost. I suppose they'll soon see if there's a drop in visitors, and if that is anything to worry about. Chances are they'll attribute a fall in numbers to the economic situation though.

 

[godfreycomplex]

I suppose they'll soon see if there's a drop in visitors, and if that is anything to worry about.

 

[jon0844]

They need to get Eric Cartman to take over, and not let anyone in...

[Clip of South Park episode where Eric Cartman gets a theme park and won't allow anyone to come, initially, and the whole world goes mad trying to get in].

 

[island]

Why don’t you like it? It has a nice open plan feeling downstairs. Is the waiting area very small then?

The main floor's full of touts, scammers, and mendicants. Once you get to the Eurostar area it's nicer, although can get crowded when there's two 374s going out full half an hour apart.

 

[Bald Rick]

Perhaps more pertinent is the fact that Eurostar carried over 1bn passengers in 2015, so Disneyland formed 0.06% of its Business in that year.

10m passengers. 1bn would be quite something for 50 or so trains a day!

(The 1bn you are thinking of is probably the revenue in £)

 

[zwk500]

10m passengers. 1bn would be quite something for 50 or so trains a day!

(The 1bn you are thinking of is probably the revenue in £)

Embarrassingly, I've confused a Eurostar news release even more than that. The 1,017m was using French conventions (I.e. 1,017,000 passengers) and it was over July, not the year.
So 10m sounds about right.