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Amsterdam Eurostar

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Bald Rick

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Oh Amiens would benefit, as would the Pas de Calais. But in the scheme of things, not a great deal.

Re LGV Nord, I’ve often wondered how busy it is. At the busiest times it has two trains an hour to each of London, Brussels, Lille (alternating between Lille Europe with extensions to Calais / Boulougne, and a direct Lille Flanders service), plus 1 train an hour to Arras which splits to Dunquerke and Valenciennes. Then occasionally services from Lille (or further north) via Massy / CDG to other parts of France. Perhaps 8 an hour in total, are there any more? Doesn’t seem that full to me.
 
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tasky

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Oh Amiens would benefit, as would the Pas de Calais. But in the scheme of things, not a great deal.

Re LGV Nord, I’ve often wondered how busy it is. At the busiest times it has two trains an hour to each of London, Brussels, Lille (alternating between Lille Europe with extensions to Calais / Boulougne, and a direct Lille Flanders service), plus 1 train an hour to Arras which splits to Dunquerke and Valenciennes. Then occasionally services from Lille (or further north) via Massy / CDG to other parts of France. Perhaps 8 an hour in total, are there any more? Doesn’t seem that full to me.
Does this include the Paris avoiding services like Lyon-Lille, Bordeaux-Lille, Brussels-Strasbourg, Brussels-Marseilles, Mulhouse-Lille etc? I'll admit I'm not familiar with the diagram but I do know that when something goes wrong with the Thalys the whole thing collapses, and I'd always been led to believe that was due to it being run on the head of a pin in terms of capacity.
 

Bald Rick

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Does this include the Paris avoiding services like Lyon-Lille, Bordeaux-Lille, Brussels-Strasbourg, Brussels-Marseilles, Mulhouse-Lille etc? I'll admit I'm not familiar with the diagram but I do know that when something goes wrong with the Thalys the whole thing collapses, and I'd always been led to believe that was due to it being run on the head of a pin in terms of capacity.

Theres 7 to / from Paris, plus another 1 an hour, occasionally two, that go via the LGV Interconnexion via CDG. I can’t find any more than that.
 

S-Car-Go

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HS1 is designed for about 8tph. And that's basically built to the French LGV design.
 

edwin_m

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HS2 are talking about 18 trains per hour with technology that exists now (ERTMS level 2 and Connected Driver Advisory or ATO I think) so upgrading to something like that would be a lot cheaper than building LGV Picardie.
 

SHD

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The document I linked is a government report on the plans to increase capacity of LN1 to 15-16 tph in the medium term.
 

AlexNL

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The signs have been up for a while. Haven't heard any news lately about when they expect direct NL>GB services to launch, so I think the original timeframe still stands.
 

Gadget88

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Visited Antwerp station for first ten today. Massive station almost size of St Pancras. Very surprised people say it’s not big enough to host Eurostar. Lots of room for a check in area for Eurostar.
 

Gadget88

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Just out of interest what level does Eurostar pass through presumably the bottom platforms?
 

jopsuk

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Just out of interest what level does Eurostar pass through presumably the bottom platforms?
it would be a bit of a problem if they tried to pass through on any other level!

Just because Antwerp is huge, doesn't mean it has space for a secure area. the bottom, through, level is a pair of islands, accessed at two points from small mezzazine levels and directly from surface level by two sets of lifts.
 

S-Car-Go

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The document I linked is a government report on the plans to increase capacity of LN1 to 15-16 tph in the medium term.
16tph is a lot more than I thought. But then TGVs and E*s run at 3 min headways at the moment. Over 1 hour that would = 16+tph.
 

cle

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How many minutes will the Mechelen bypass save?
Anything else planned which would reduce Thalys and Eurostar journey times (other than diverting to Zuid as we said)?

On LGV Nord, there are often 2tph through CDG and I can see scope for more. There are a lot of token daily Brussels services which are added when new cities are accelerated by new LGV - but then ramp up Lille frequencies in time too. Mulhouse/Strasbourg and more recently Bordeaux. I'd expect a standard 2tph between Lille and Lyon in time - but obviously extending at both ends.

I'd expect an increase in Eurostar too, perhaps to Bordeaux.
 

AlexNL

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The talks about the direct Amsterdam -> London service are in the final phase. An update should follow in September.
 

tasky

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How many minutes will the Mechelen bypass save?

It won't be more than a minute or two - it's 3.2km (or some sources say 2.5km, presumably depends how you measure it) and raises the linespeed from 100km/h to 160km/h. As I understand it it is about capacity.
 

Gadget88

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The talks about the direct Amsterdam -> London service are in the final phase. An update should follow in September.
Yes am I right in thinking the plan won’t always be to stop at Amsterdam central is it some sort of proper waiting and security area that needs built? Why was the small terminal built I guess it’s not required when you arrive?
 

AlexNL

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Why was the small terminal built I guess it’s not required when you arrive?
The small terminal is only needed for passengers going to the UK. All necessary checks (immigration, baggage checks) will happen there. There won't be any checks for arriving passengers.

The terminal building at Centraal is temporary - the idea is for all international trains (including Eurostar) to move to Amsterdam Zuid once that station has been expanded.
 

Gadget88

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The small terminal is only needed for passengers going to the UK. All necessary checks (immigration, baggage checks) will happen there. There won't be any checks for arriving passengers.

The terminal building at Centraal is temporary - the idea is for all international trains (including Eurostar) to move to Amsterdam Zuid once that station has been expanded.
How far is that station from the central one?
 

Gadget88

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5.4 km, 3.5mi. 15 minutes by metro.

Surely passengers would rather arrive in the centre? I know in Paris and Brussels they don’t. I mean why don’t they go to Gare De Lyon anyway? I assume as most services at the other station arrive from
The north?
 

radamfi

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If people are going to be travelling around the city by public transport it doesn't really matter what station they arrive at. For locals, what matters is how connected the station is to other public transport lines and it is easy to get to Amsterdam Zuid from across the region by train or metro.
 

DavidGrain

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Like all cities it depends on how you define the centre. If you define the Dam Square as the centre of Amsterdam then Centraal Station is to the north. As radamfi has said it is connections that matter. When I first went to Amsterdam in 1987 I was quite happy to get a train from the airport to RAI Station and use tram 4 into the city centre when I needed to.
 

AlexNL

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Amsterdam Centraal isn't that centrally situated. It's to the north of the city centre, while Zuid is to the uhm, south. The Noordzuidlijn (metro 52) provides a good connection between both stations and serves a number of tourist relevant stops along the way.

Metro 52 also runs highly frequent (every 6 minutes) so there won't be a long wait. Once the rebuild of Amsterdam Zuid is complete, the frequency of M52 can be stepped up to 12tph (every 5 minutes) as there will then be a new terminal platform at Zuid.
 

Ianno87

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Oh Amiens would benefit, as would the Pas de Calais. But in the scheme of things, not a great deal.

Re LGV Nord, I’ve often wondered how busy it is. At the busiest times it has two trains an hour to each of London, Brussels, Lille (alternating between Lille Europe with extensions to Calais / Boulougne, and a direct Lille Flanders service), plus 1 train an hour to Arras which splits to Dunquerke and Valenciennes. Then occasionally services from Lille (or further north) via Massy / CDG to other parts of France. Perhaps 8 an hour in total, are there any more? Doesn’t seem that full to me.

Does this include the Paris avoiding services like Lyon-Lille, Bordeaux-Lille, Brussels-Strasbourg, Brussels-Marseilles, Mulhouse-Lille etc? I'll admit I'm not familiar with the diagram but I do know that when something goes wrong with the Thalys the whole thing collapses, and I'd always been led to believe that was due to it being run on the head of a pin in terms of capacity.

Theres 7 to / from Paris, plus another 1 an hour, occasionally two, that go via the LGV Interconnexion via CDG. I can’t find any more than that.

I seem to remember going through the European Rail Timetable a few years back and getting about 10-12 trains in the busiest peak hour away from Paris. There are odd, single train, peak direction type workings to places like Mons that aren't easy to spot.
 

paolo

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Amsterdam Centraal isn't that centrally situated. It's to the north of the city centre, while Zuid is to the uhm, south.

From a tourist/my perspective, Centraal looks closer to the tourist attractions than Zuid. On the inaugural Eurostar arrival, I wheeled my bag to a canal side hotel, and spent the rest of the time exploring on foot. In my mind I’d arrived in the middle... no metros, trams or buses needed.

I can appreciate that for locals this may well not be the case (and for that, local transit connections are more important than arriving at a notional centre).

I wonder what the balance of E* customers is, tourists vs locals?
 

2392

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From a tourist/my perspective, Centraal looks closer to the tourist attractions than Zuid. On the inaugural Eurostar arrival, I wheeled my bag to a canal side hotel, and spent the rest of the time exploring on foot. In my mind I’d arrived in the middle... no metros, trams or buses needed.

I can appreciate that for locals this may well not be the case (and for that, local transit connections are more important than arriving at a notional centre).

I wonder what the balance of E* customers is, tourists vs locals?

I can whole heartedly agree. Amsterdam Centraal, is just off the city centre, like Newcastle [upon Tyne] Central. Apart from my first visit when I went on a National Holidays long weekend City break, when I/we used an Hotel in the Business District [handily there was a direct tram No 16 that went into the Centre of town. The terminal there being Centraal!], I've always used a hotel in the City Centre a few minutes walk from Centraal Station. As an aside handily for me I can get the Tyne & Wear Metro [when it's working] Door to Door from home to Newcastle International Airport.
 

radamfi

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From a tourist/my perspective, Centraal looks closer to the tourist attractions than Zuid. On the inaugural Eurostar arrival, I wheeled my bag to a canal side hotel, and spent the rest of the time exploring on foot. In my mind I’d arrived in the middle... no metros, trams or buses needed.

Some of the key attractions are a long walk from Centraal Station. For example, the Rijksmuseum is more than 2 km away.
 
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