I was surprised but I suppose if its say a 9 seater minibus for a journey like Ashford to Lillie short notice it quite possibly undercuts Eurostar. Even like 4 travellers in a Mercedes saloon wouldn't be too expensive and Lille is only about the same distance from Folkestone as Luton Airport. If you have a business flexiplus account with Eurotunnel its a turn up and go on next available train service.
But Le Shuttle is aimed entirely at the Vehicle market. When it was planned, passengers were expected to take the train or ferry. Now they're expected to take the train or fly.
As a regular long-distance walker, I can tell you they're often pavement vehicles.
No infrastructure for check in of pedestrians and no safe walking route from terminal to Le Shuttle or v.v., ( which is quite a distance) and no economical way of providing it either. They couldn't travel on the car carrying trains because they have no passenger accommodation apart from inside customers vehicles.
The car carrying trains will need replacing at some point. Also, they use minibuses for the lorry services to get the drivers to the Club Car.
On the Shuttle, bikes are carried in Eurotunnel transit-sized vans, large enough to take 4 cyclists and their bikes, plus the Eurotunnel driver. See the Eurotunnel bike carriage page for details.
Why would they want to replace a revenue generating car carrying vehicle with a carriage carrying hardly anyone, plus having to spend money getting the passengers to & from that carriage - passengers that would have had difficulty getting to the terminal via Motorway access anyway.
The potential market is far too small to be economically catered for. At £1m for a carriage, how many foot passenger tickets would they have to sell for that?......
It's not as simple as just sticking a carriage on the end, because of the arrangements for evacuating the tunnel in the event of a fire. And also for day trippers, being dumped at the Sangatte terminal is not very useful. If you want to do something like that, you'd do as described upthread and just arrange for a taxi to take you all the way to a suitable point in France.
Fair enough.
They will need replacing, but not for some time.
If there was a market for Le Shuttle offering it, the way to run it would be to have a minibus just travel through the tunnel, shuttling between the Duty-free building at each end. The fact that they don't do it indicates the economic prospects.
It's 20 miles. Even for fit walkers, that's a full day's walk. Allowing cycles through a service tunnel might have had some consideration, but the ferries are still carrying cycles. As it happens a Road link was considered, but venitilation concerns, driver fatigue and costs put paid to it. The page on what used to be CBRD https://www.roads.org.uk/articles/euroroute is well worth checking out.
The economics of this would be absurd. I can just, just, see a potential local transport option of Ashford (centre) - Ashford Designer Outlet - Le Shuttle - Calais (Theatre, Gare-Ville then wherever the long-distance bus stop is). But even then the costs will be huge and patronage limited.
I don't think it would be a good idea as a local bus - it would have to be a coach to cope with the possible luggage. With the check in times, the immigration and customs formalities etc and a suitable buffer for delays, a round trip would take about 7-8 hours to complete and start again. 15 hours overall for two journeys. The trips would be something like 08h00 and 16h00 from Ashford, 12 noon and 20h00 from Dunkirk. Two drivers, hopeless times at Ashford and Calais if you are connecting to/from anywhere else (except the 12 noon from Dunkirk). (Using the tunnel would be slightly better, say 10h00 and 16h00 from Ashford / 13h00 and 19h00 from Dunkirk, but still far from ideal. Might get all of this in one long driver duty, ?).
Quite! Apart from who would use it, the advertising costs of getting such a niche thing known would be absurd too!
The longest tunnel I have driven through is the Fréjus Road Tunnel. That is a mere 8 miles long. It was mind-numbingly tedious. This was mid-morning, well rested.
I've linked the presentation above, but I think it was a 10-12 mile tunnel, but with a giant spiral ramp at either end transitioning to a bridge to reduce the tunnel distance. Even so, doing that in a car of that 80s/early 90s era isn't something I'd have looked forward to.
9.5 miles of bridges exposed to channel weather, which includes thick fog and howling gales. It was never a great plan.
Those conditions are not particularly bad compared to other road bridges constructed in the 1990s and since.
Pride of Kent crossed earlier today. I recall spotting Pride of Canterbury over the summer. Not sure about Pride of Burgundy.
I'm aware Pride of Burgundy was stood down a long time ago, I wasn't sure if the other two followed. I don't like Pride of Canterbury. Haven't been on Pride of Kent.
According to Vessel finder Spirit of Britain, Spirt of France and Pride of Kent are in use today.
Many thanks. I believe the Spirit of France to be a considerably more pleasant environment than the Pride of Canterbury & Burgundy. I believe Spirit of Britain is identical.
www.niferry.co.uk
There is not long left for the Pride twins anyway, the first of their double-ended replacements is due to be in service next year.
First New P&O Ferries Dover Ship Floated Out in China - niferry.co.uk
The first of P&O Ferries two new Dover - Calais ferries has been floated out in China and the names of the ships revealed.
I have not seen any details of how likely that is to happen.
I'd have thought putting a turbine on the mast/funnel would generate more power!
ABB are working on one ....
From the first video:
