New High-Speed Rail (350~450 Km/h) proposal between Lille, Luxembourg and Bruchsal's Rollenberg junction (Germany)

[lindenmeyer11]

Dear Sirs and Madams,
      I would like to very briefly present a proposal for a high-speed train line between the cities of Lille-Europe, Louxembourg and Bruchsal (Germany).
      I believe it is time to discuss a step forward on the connectability between Great Britain and main Europe. The separation of the Fast Train Tracks after the Channel Tunnel, takes place in Lille at acute angles (towards Paris and Brussels). Luxembourg would consequently be the third connection priority, not only because it is the capital of a country, but also because it is exactly on the path perpendicular to the coast of the channel, bisecting the lines of Paris and Brussels, and coincidentally heading towards an important junction between two high-speed lines in germany, the "Magistrale for Europe" and the "Rhine–Alpine Corridor", allowing direct travels between Swizzerland, Luxembourg, East-France, Austria, Germany in Less then 3-4-5 Hours which is today not possible being Flying the most chosen way of Travel.
      Acoording to a quick sketch, a new Fast Train Line starting at the Triangle ferroviaire de Fretin [TGV, Eurostar, Thalys] (50°34'13.6"N 3°8'40.4"E) to Bruchsal(49°10'2.6"N 8°34'11.1"E), with stops at Maubeuge (41,5mi~66,4Km), Cauvin(68,5mi~109,6Km), Fumay(79,3mi~126,88Km), Bertrix(106,6mi~170,56Km), Arlon(134,3~214,88Km), Luxemburg(149,5mi~239,2Km), Merzig(173,4mi~277,44Km), Homburg(206,18mi~330Km), Landau(243,3mi~389,28Km), Bruchsal(263,9mi~422,24Km) would require constructing around 430~450Km of new High-Speed Tracks.
      Considering a project allowing trains to travel up to 400Km/h but also aiming at avarage speeds above 320Km/h, we could be talking in direct connections between St. Pancras and Luxembourg in times as low as 2:00h (5:50h today), or to Stuttgart in 2:50h (6:34h today), Saarbrücken 2:25h, Strassbourg 3:25h (4:27h today), Mannheim 2:50h, Karlsruhe 2:40h, Ulm 3:20h, Augsburg 3:45h, Munich 4:25h (8:33h today), Mulhouse 4:35h, Basel 4:10h, Zürich 4:55h (non stop), Bern 5:20h , Nuremberg 4:45h (8:27h today), Freiburg 3:35h (6:53h today), Heidelberg 3:00h, Heilbron 3:00h, Ingolstadt 4:25h, Frankfurt Airport 3:20h (city 3:30h) and to Salzburg 5:40h, Vienna 8:10h, Linz 6:45h, Bratislava 9:10, Innsbruck 5:35h).
      I imagine the cost of such undertaking (50bi€) could be divided in equal parts among France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Great Britain and Germany. But for that there should be stops along the way in the key cities mentioned above.
One issue that would have to be addressed is about border passenger control, as most stations would not be prepared to isolate platforms in order to carry out the check. Such control could be done inside the trains during the trip, when buying the tickets or eventually on arrival at St. Pancras.
      Very briefly, I would like to indicate the following site, which illustrates very well how far someone can get by train within 5 hours from a particular location. If such a project were to be built, a huge demand of the "Blue Banana" would be covered. (I attached 2 images showing how the connection to St. Pancras is today and how the added cluster would more or less look like if the project were to take place).

https://www.chronotrains.com/en/station/7001424-London-St.-Pancras/5

And one example of how much farther Londoners could reach in 5 hours if the project was built:

https://www.chronotrains.com/en/station/8000055-Bruchsal/3

      I would like to thank you for your attention, and just say that I am a passionate of the rail transport system, I am also concerned about the environment and being an economist I could not help but notice this surpressed demand that could be very well solved with such project.
I would love to hear your opinion on this idea.
      Eduardo Sebben Lindenmeyer

 

[D6130]

A very interesting proposal. Do the second and third maps indicate population density?

 

[lindenmeyer11]

A very interesting proposal. Do the second and third maps indicate population density?

The first cluster indicates how far someone can go in 5 hours, starting in St. Pancras Station TODAY. And the second cluster shows more or less how much farther someone could reach in the same 5 hours, starting at St. Pancras, if the project were to be built.

 

[Bartsimho]

The first cluster indicates how far someone can go in 5 hours, starting in St. Pancras Station TODAY. And the second cluster shows more or less how much farther someone could reach in the same 5 hours, starting at St. Pancras, if the project were to be built.

I think it would be interesting and a useful rail link although we would probably need to have the border setup plan present before contribution to funding it as that would be the major sticking point for Britain. If this and a more Europe Leaning government (likely after 2025 with the next Election) was sorted I could see this being seriously considered.

The border issues would have to be either a get off the train at Coquelles or Cheriton for Passport control, The re-modelling of St Pancras station for checking arrivals, A movement towards free movement (not likely considering the current political climate) or checking at the departure and boarding locations as is the current situation.

I would prefer a check at Coquelles or Cheriton as it would allow a more open and friendly situation at St Pancras itself but I doubt the will is there is implement that at present.

 

[lindenmeyer11]

I think it would be interesting and a useful rail link although we would probably need to have the border setup plan present before contribution to funding it as that would be the major sticking point for Britain. If this and a more Europe Leaning government (likely after 2025 with the next Election) was sorted I could see this being seriously considered.

The border issues would have to be either a get off the train at Coquelles or Cheriton for Passport control, The re-modelling of St Pancras station for checking arrivals, A movement towards free movement (not likely considering the current political climate) or checking at the departure and boarding locations as is the current situation.

I would prefer a check at Coquelles or Cheriton as it would allow a more open and friendly situation at St Pancras itself but I doubt the will is there is implement that at present.

If there is no agreement to optimize and save time and resources, perhaps a control at a station would be indeed necessary. This control would therefore be carried out on the "European" side, most likely in Lille-Europe, since there is already the greatest influx of people wanting to cross the channel to London and beiing the last station before arriving in England. Finally enabling a high frequency train between Lille and London as long planned.

 

[Bartsimho]

If there is no agreement to optimize and save time and resources, perhaps a control at a station would be indeed necessary. This control would therefore be carried out on the "European" side, most likely in Lille-Europe, since there is already the greatest influx of people wanting to cross the channel to London and beiing the last station before arriving in England. Finally enabling a high frequency train between Lille and London as long planned.

The Control is the Cheriton/Coquelles idea as that is where the tunnel ends are. Placing it there would also allow Calais-Fréthun stops for other services and the Ferry foot traffic could be taken.

 

[Trainbike46]

If this were build, setting up border controls at Luxembourg would be an option; Passengers from further afield could change at Luxembourg, and given the size and importance Luxembourg would probably generate enough passengers to have a service. A Lille-shuffle would also be an option for through trains, but that is less than ideal

 

[stuu]

I can see the principle, but seeing as Germany can't even build important parts of their own network - e.g. Frankfurt-Mannheim, the chances of building a railway through some quite tough terrain primarily to benefit other countries must be pretty small

 

[lindenmeyer11]

I can see the principle, but seeing as Germany can't even build important parts of their own network - e.g. Frankfurt-Mannheim, the chances of building a railway through some quite tough terrain primarily to benefit other countries must be pretty small

They take a long time to make decisions and implement them. However, I do appreciate their technical skills. I just looked up the number of direct flights from Frankfurt to London and there are around 12 flights a day, from Stuttgart 4~5 a day, Luxembourg 1, Munich 10~11, Zurich 9~10, Nuremberg 2, Salzburg 3, Basel 4 , Karlsruhe 1, Memmingen 1. Flights from and to Brussels would also be affected, today there are 4 daily flights from Brussels to Munich, 3 to Zürich, 1 to Basel, 2 to Strassbourg, 2 to Frankfurt, 4 to Vienna. There are also 4 direct flights from Amsterdam to Stuttgart, 1 to Luxembourg, 2 to Zürich, 4 to Basel, 17 to Munich. And from those flights, I calculate that half of them could be substituted by trains. Also considering the HS2 mega-project in Great Britain, I think this project would complement that very well. Even better would be if Euston and Pancras were "connected". But one thing at a time...

 

[MattRat]

I can see the principle, but seeing as Germany can't even build important parts of their own network - e.g. Frankfurt-Mannheim, the chances of building a railway through some quite tough terrain primarily to benefit other countries must be pretty small

Could the EU be put in charge of the project? They are constantly banging on about how great they are, so why not prove it?

 

[zwk500]

Could the EU be put in charge of the project? They are constantly banging on about how great they are, so why not prove it?

That's not what the EU does.

@lindenmeyer11 This is a very interesting proposal.

      Acoording to a quick sketch, a new Fast Train Line starting at the Triangle ferroviaire de Fretin [TGV, Eurostar, Thalys] (50°34'13.6"N 3°8'40.4"E) to Bruchsal(49°10'2.6"N 8°34'11.1"E),

There is a significant technical question here around how exactly the line would link in to the triangle to preserve a c.200kph speed and whether or not the land is available for that, especially as the project will involve linking into the LGV Nord but without a France (Paris)-facing link, making it harder for the French to justify public expenditure in the line.

with stops at Maubeuge (41,5mi~66,4Km), Cauvin(68,5mi~109,6Km), Fumay(79,3mi~126,88Km), Bertrix(106,6mi~170,56Km), Arlon(134,3~214,88Km), Luxemburg(149,5mi~239,2Km), Merzig(173,4mi~277,44Km), Homburg(206,18mi~330Km), Landau(243,3mi~389,28Km), Bruchsal(263,9mi~422,24Km) would require constructing around 430~450Km of new High-Speed Tracks.

None of these stops except possibly Luxembourg would justify a call in a London-Frankfurt train (and even Luxembourg is borderline).

      Considering a project allowing trains to travel up to 400Km/h but also aiming at avarage speeds above 320Km/h, we could be talking in direct connections between St. Pancras and Luxembourg in times as low as 2:00h, or to Stuttgart in 2:50h, Saarbrücken 2:25h, Strassbourg 3:25h, Mannheim 2:50h, Karlsruhe 2:40h, Ulm 3:20h, Augsburg 3:45h, Munich 4:25h, Mulhouse 4:35h, Basel 4:10h, Zürich 5:20h, Bern 5:20h , Nuremberg 4:45h, Freiburg 3:35h, Heidelberg 3:00h, Heilbron 3:00h, Ingolstadt 4:25h, Frankfurt Airport 3:20h (city 3:30h) and to Salzburg 5:40h, Vienna 8:10h, Linz 6:45h, Bratislava 9:10, Innsbruck 5:35h).

Of these stops, there are only really potential viable markets from St Pancras to Frankfurt, Cologne, Zurich, and Geneva (and Geneva would likely go via LGV Interconnexion Est). Some additional stops like Strassbourg might be contemplated for connectivity, but the market for UK- Europe travel via HSR is limited to places with strong business links, or areas of high concentration of middle-income holidaymakers. Luxembourg, Saarbrucken, Mannheim, Karlsruhe, Ulm, Augsburg are all lovely cities but the demand for travel from the UK is low. Once you get to 5h journey duration, the flights become harder to compete against as the speed of a plane makes up for the air-city transfers.

I imagine the cost of such undertaking (20~50bi€) could be divided in equal parts among France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Great Britain and Germany. But for that there should be stops along the way in the key cities mentioned above.

The UK, French and Belgian governments would never fund the line for domestic political reasons. The line is entirely outside the UK, and it avoids both Belgian and French national capitals. It also involves blasting a hole underneath the Ardennes. Luxembourg may fund the portion of lines in it's territory but any contribution for beyond that would be nominal at best, similar with Germany. The only source of funds would be the EU or commercial finance.

One issue that would have to be addressed is about border passenger control, as most stations would not be prepared to isolate platforms in order to carry out the check. Such control could be done inside the trains during the trip, when buying the tickets or eventually on arrival at St. Pancras.

Controls on board the train are not acceptable to the UK home office, nor would checking on arrival be permissible. The Disney train got an exemption because it was 99% British holidaymakers. The Home office would insist (largely for domestic political) reasons either on a Lille Shuffle or pre-boarding checks, as with the recent expansion into the Netherlands.

      I would like to thank you for your attention, and just say that I am a passionate of the rail transport system, I am also concerned about the environment and being an economist I could not help but notice this surpressed demand that could be very well solved with such project.

I personally feel that the best solution from both an environmental and economic view would be for DB to sort out border security arrangements at Cologne Hbf and Frankfurt Airport and run ICE trains to London via Brussels. In order to speed this up HSR bypasses of Liege and Aachen should be considered, as well as the long-term possibility of a Brussels HSR bypass for London-Amsterdam direct trains that could have a connection into HSL-3 for direct London-Cologne trains.

The big caveat to this is that if the UK were to join Schengen, then all sorts of possibilities open up due to the smoother border formalities. However even so you are looking at needing c.900 people looking to all travel from London to the same place at roughly the same time in order to make the train viable. In order to run the service viable long term then, you need a sufficient volume of people above that who might look to travel at any time, so that you can reliably fill a train of 900 people several times a day, to justfiy the cost of the border facilities.

I sympathise with where this project is coming from, but a new line avoiding the 2 biggest traffic markets closest to London - Brussels and Paris simply is never going to be built if they cannot manage the much simpler task of extending existing trains from Brussels to Germany on the existing infrastructure. I'd love there to be a Cologne-London train if it stopped in Liege, but alas I have to take the SNCB IC trains up to Brussels before i can get onto a Eurostar on my trips home.

 

[Magdalia]

The separation of the Fast Train Tracks after the Channel Tunnel, takes place in Lille at acute angles (towards Paris and Brussels). Luxembourg would consequently be the third connection priority, not only because it is the capital of a country, but also because it is exactly on the path perpendicular to the coast of the channel, bisecting the lines of Paris and Brussels, and coincidentally heading towards an important junction between two high-speed lines in germany, the "Magistrale for Europe" and the "Rhine–Alpine Corridor", allowing direct travels between Swizzerland, Luxembourg, East-France, Austria, Germany in Less then 3-4-5 Hours which is today not possible being Flying the most chosen way of Travel.

This is an interesting proposal, as, if it had existed 20-30 years ago, then I would have been a user. My most common international work journeys were London-Frankfurt and London-Luxembourg, and my most common international leisure journeys were also to Germany. For work I usually flew, for leisure I usually went by train, breaking the outward journey at Koln.

But I think it is a non runner.

I believe it is time to discuss a step forward on the connectability between Great Britain and main Europe.

I imagine the cost of such undertaking (20~50bi€) could be divided in equal parts among France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Great Britain and Germany.

Do you follow UK news? This is definitely not a priority for the current UK government, and, whatever the outcome of the next election, that isn't going to change much.

Luxembourg would consequently be the third connection priority

I just looked up the number of direct flights

Luxembourg 1

None of these stops except possibly Luxembourg would justify a call in a London-Frankfurt train (and even Luxembourg is borderline).

I can see the London newspaper headlines already: "Gravy Train for EU bureaucrats".

When I used to travel there were possibly 4-5 flights a day to from London. Brexit has wiped out the London-Luxembourg route.

I just looked up the number of direct flights from Frankfurt to London and there are around 12 flights a day, from Stuttgart 4~5 a day, Luxembourg 1, Munich 10~11, Zurich 9~10

That tells you that making better use of what is already in place London-Frankfurt, plus going south to Stuttgart and Munchen, is a more realistic prospect. That's entirely a matter for Germany.

 

[zwk500]

When I used to travel there were possibly 4-5 flights a day to from London. Brexit has wiped out the London-Luxembourg route.

Not just Brexit, but also the ground travel improvements in Europe and the switch to teleconferencing.

 

[Trainbike46]

That's not what the EU does.

@lindenmeyer11 This is a very interesting proposal.

There is a significant technical question here around how exactly the line would link in to the triangle to preserve a c.200kph speed and whether or not the land is available for that, especially as the project will involve linking into the LGV Nord but without a France (Paris)-facing link, making it harder for the French to justify public expenditure in the line.

None of these stops except possibly Luxembourg would justify a call in a London-Frankfurt train (and even Luxembourg is borderline).

Of these stops, there are only really potential viable markets from St Pancras to Frankfurt, Cologne, Zurich, and Geneva (and Geneva would likely go via LGV Interconnexion Est). Some additional stops like Strassbourg might be contemplated for connectivity, but the market for UK- Europe travel via HSR is limited to places with strong business links, or areas of high concentration of middle-income holidaymakers. Luxembourg, Saarbrucken, Mannheim, Karlsruhe, Ulm, Augsburg are all lovely cities but the demand for travel from the UK is low. Once you get to 5h journey duration, the flights become harder to compete against as the speed of a plane makes up for the air-city transfers.

The UK, French and Belgian governments would never fund the line for domestic political reasons. The line is entirely outside the UK, and it avoids both Belgian and French national capitals. It also involves blasting a hole underneath the Ardennes. Luxembourg may fund the portion of lines in it's territory but any contribution for beyond that would be nominal at best, similar with Germany. The only source of funds would be the EU or commercial finance.

Controls on board the train are not acceptable to the UK home office, nor would checking on arrival be permissible. The Disney train got an exemption because it was 99% British holidaymakers. The Home office would insist (largely for domestic political) reasons either on a Lille Shuffle or pre-boarding checks, as with the recent expansion into the Netherlands.

I personally feel that the best solution from both an environmental and economic view would be for DB to sort out border security arrangements at Cologne Hbf and Frankfurt Airport and run ICE trains to London via Brussels. In order to speed this up HSR bypasses of Liege and Aachen should be considered, as well as the long-term possibility of a Brussels HSR bypass for London-Amsterdam direct trains that could have a connection into HSL-3 for direct London-Cologne trains.

The big caveat to this is that if the UK were to join Schengen, then all sorts of possibilities open up due to the smoother border formalities. However even so you are looking at needing c.900 people looking to all travel from London to the same place at roughly the same time in order to make the train viable. In order to run the service viable long term then, you need a sufficient volume of people above that who might look to travel at any time, so that you can reliably fill a train of 900 people several times a day, to justfiy the cost of the border facilities.

I sympathise with where this project is coming from, but a new line avoiding the 2 biggest traffic markets closest to London - Brussels and Paris simply is never going to be built if they cannot manage the much simpler task of extending existing trains from Brussels to Germany on the existing infrastructure. I'd love there to be a Cologne-London train if it stopped in Liege, but alas I have to take the SNCB IC trains up to Brussels before i can get onto a Eurostar on my trips home.

Wow, that's a lot of amazing detail!!

Extending some of the Brussels-terminating Eurostars to Germany would be a good idea, though I don't see it happening anytime soon with the issues Eurostar is currently facing

Two points I would like to raise:

- Would adding a Paris-facing connection, to allow Paris-Luxembourg-beyond trains make sense?
- If the UK would join Schengen (highly unlikely, but still), you wouldn't need to have 900 passengers on end-to-end flows as you could serve intermediate flows (London-Lille, Lille-Luxembourg, etc.)

 

[zwk500]

Extending some of the Brussels-terminating Eurostars to Germany would be a good idea, though I don't see it happening anytime soon with the issues Eurostar is currently facing

I can see DB doing it sooner than Eurostar. I agree Eurostar will want to focus on consolidating the NL service and then will look at London-Bordeaux/Avignon again before Germany.

- Would adding a Paris-facing connection, to allow Paris-Luxembourg-beyond trains make sense?

Not really, Paris-Luxembourg will be quicker via LGV Est and Metz than Lille.

- If the UK would join Schengen (highly unlikely, but still), you wouldn't need to have 900 passengers on end-to-end flows as you could serve intermediate flows (London-Lille, Lille-Luxembourg, etc.)

The UK didn't join Schengen when it was part of the EU, there's not a cat in hell's chance it would join having left. And the re-entry of the UK to the EU isn't going to happen for at least 2 political generations, and when it does I suspect a Schengen exemption will remain a red line for the UK government. And the intermediate flows are not really that big, for commercial reasons you'd want to have as few stops as possible along the way. There's a reason Eurostar are trying to keep London-Paris as non-stop only, with as many Lille stops as possible being pushed onto the Brussels trains (that slow down for the Fretin triangle more than the Paris trains as well as having a shorter journey, 2h vs 2h30 to paris).

 

[stuu]

Is anything planned to speed up Brussels-Cologne journey times? Averaging about 100km/h is pretty poor

 

[zwk500]

Is anything planned to speed up Brussels-Cologne journey times? Averaging about 100km/h is pretty poor

There doesn't appear to be.

 

[30907]

Is anything planned to speed up Brussels-Cologne journey times? Averaging about 100km/h is pretty poor

The ICE/Thalys takes 110min (105 to B-Noord) for about 220km which is 120km/h with 2 stops. I doubt it could be faster without a Liege bypass which hardly makes sense.

 

[lindenmeyer11]

I agree that commercially there wouldn´t be so much demand for the small towns between Lille and Bruchsal (they are however somehow connected to public transport system), however this whole region has a deficit of high speed trains and interconnectivity between countries, due to the mountainous terrain that makes it difficult and the low population density, I just thought that it could be an argument in favor of trying to convince France and Belgium to embark on this project. I believe that England would have more to gain from such a project, as it would open up a huge range of route possibilities, competing on an equal grounds with flying (or even being more advantageous) at a time when expanding airports such as Heathrow are facing unpopularity, and at a time when pollution targets are very strict and challenging.
Flights from London to these cities in the south of Germany-Switzerland take around 2 hours of flight time. If we factor in all the travel time to airports, baggage check-in time, customs control, taxiing, and transfer time to city centers again, it would take as much time or more than a train ride, polluting at least seven times as much as one flight.

I deeply believe that if a new route were to be created, it should avoid passing through Brussels because such a detour would result in a "delay" of at least 30 minutes in trips from Munich, Frankfurt and Zürich, completely making the project unfeasible. At most, a compromise could be analyzed, in such a way that a new line junction would be created between Lille and Brussels (I imagine it could be here: 50°34'41.9"N 3°44'34.5"E ), in such a way that a train coming from Luxembourg could divert (to the right) to Brussels (then Amsterdam) or continue (to the left) to Lille (then London) without stopping or slowing down, thus making the much coveted route to Brussels feasible, but also allowing an almost direct route to London, thus saving a few kilometers of construction (25km).
Today it is not possible to travel by train from central London to Luxembourg in less than 5 hours (the fastest takes 5:21h), to Frankfurt it takes today 5:30h, Zürich 7:31, Stuttgart 6:35, Munich 9:06. These times can be drastically reduced as mentioned above.

Possible routes suggestions (instead of London it could also be Brussels-Antwerpen-Rotterdam-Amsterdam)
Turin-Milan-Zürich-Basel-Karlsruhe-Luxembourg-Lille-London (1x a day)
Geneve-Lausanne-Fribourg-Bern-Basel-Freiburg(Breisgau)-Karlsruhe-Luxembourg-London (1x a day)
Rome-Bologna-Trento-Innsbrück-Munich-Stuttgart-Luxembourg-London (1x a day)
Rome-Florence-Bologna-Verona-Innsbrück-Munich-Stuttgart-Luxembourg-Lille-London (1x a day)
(Marseille-Toulon-Cannes-Nice-Monaco-Ventimiglia-Imperia-Savona)/(Rome-Civitavecchia-Grosseto-Livorno-Pisa-Massa-La Spezia-Chiavari)-Genoa-Milan-Zürich-Karlsruhe-Luxembourg-Lille-London (1x a day)
Venice-Padua-Verona-Innsbrück-Munich-Stuttgart-Luxembourg-Lille-London (1x a day)
Zürich-London (1x a day)
Zürich-Basel-Freiburg-Karlsruhe-Luxembourg-London (1x a day)
Mulhouse-Strassbourg-Karlsruhe-Luxembourg-Lille-London (1x a day)
Prague-Pilsen-Nuremberg-Stuttgart-London (1x a day)
Prague-Pilsen-Nuremberg-Stuttgart-Luxembourg-Lille-London (1x a day)
(Zagreb-Zapresic-Debova-Krsko-Sevnica-Zidani Most)(Rijeka-Opatija Matulji-Sapjane-Ilirska Bistriaca-Pivka-Postojna-Barovnica)-Ljubljana-Villach-Spittal Millstättersee-Malnitz Oberfellach-Bad Gastein-Schwarzach St.Veit-Bischofshofen-Salzburg-Rosenheim-Munich Ost-Augsburg-Ulm-Stuttgart-Luxembourg-Lille-London (1x a day)
Bologna-Verona-Trento-Bolzano-Innsbruck-Munich-Stuttgart-Luxembourg-London (1x a day)
Bologa-Verona-Trento-Bolzano-Innsbruck-Munich-London (1x a day)
Budapest-Bratislava-Vienna-Munich-Stuttgart-London (1x a day)
Plattling-Landshut-Freising(Munich Airport)-Munich-Luxembourg-London (1x a day)
Budapest-Bratislava-Vienna-St.Pölten-Linz-Salzburg-Munich-Stuttgart-Luxembourg-Lille-London (1x a day)
(Oberstdorf-Immenstadt-Kempten-Memmingen-Senden)/(Chur-Landquart-Vaduz-Bregenz-Lindau-Friedrichshafen Airport-Aulendorf-Biberach)-Ulm-Stuttgart-Luxembourg-Lille-London (1x a day)
Berlin-Haale(Saale)-Erfurt-Frankfurt-Luxembourg-Lille-London (1x a day)
Berlin-Erfurt-Frankfurt-Luxembourg-London (1x a day)
Berlin-Frankfurt-London (2x a day)
Dresden-Leipzig-Erfurt-Fulda-Frankfurt-Luxembourg-Lille-London (1x a day)
Dresden-Leipzig-Erfurt-Frankfurt-Luxembourg-London (1x a day)
Dresden-Leipzig-Frankfurt-London (2x a day)
Bamberg-Schweinfurt-Würzburg-Aschaffenburg-Frankfurt-London (1x a day)
Bamberg-Schweinfurt-Würzburg-Aschaffenburg-Frankfurt-Luxembourg-Lille-London (1x a day)
Wiesbaden-Mainz-Frankfurt Airport-Mannheim-London (1x a day)
Frankfurt-Mannheim-Luxembourg-Lille-London (1x a day)
(Garmisch Patenkirchen-Murnau am Staffelsee-Weilheim in Oberbayern-Dießen am Ammersee-Schondorf am Ammersee-Geltendorf-Mering)/(Füssen-Biessenhofen-Buchloe-Bobingen)-Augsburg-Ulm-Stuttgart-Luxembourg-Lille-London (1x a day)
Regensburg-Ingolstadt-Augsburg-Ulm-Stuttgart-Luxembourg-Lille-London (1x a day)

Luxembourg-Paris (1:40h instead of today´s 2:12h (Not a huge improvement but also not worth building a dedicated line just between those cities))
Luxembourg-Brussels (1:10h instead of today´s 2:57h)
Luxembourg-Amsterdam (2:42h instead of today´s 5:32h
Stuttgart-Brussels (2:05h instead of today´s 4:10h)
Stuttgart-Amsterdam (3:37h instead of today´s 5:05h)
Munich-Brussels (3:30h instead of today´s 6:37h)
Munich-Amsterdam (5:02h instead of today´s 7:12h)
Innsbruck-Brussels (5h instead of today´s 8:55h)
Salzburg-Brussels (4:58h instead of today´s 8:35h)
Basel-Brussels (3:33h instead of today´s 5:10h)
Basel-Amsterdam (5:05h instead of today´s 6:43h)
Zürich-Brussels (4:26h instead of today´s 6:10h)
Zürich-Amsterdam (5:58h instead of today´s 7:58h)
Bern-Brussels (4:26h instead of today´s 6:39h)
Bern-Amsterdam (5:58h instead of today´s 7:58h)

Lille-Maubeuge-Cauvin-Fumay-Bertrix-Arlon-Luxemburg-Merzig-Homburg-Landau-Karlsruhe-BadenBaden-Offenburg-Freiburg-Basel (every three hours)
Lille-Maubeuge-Cauvin-Fumay-Bertrix-Arlon-Luxemburg-Merzig-Homburg-Landau-Mannheim-Frankfurt (every three hours)
Lille-Maubeuge-Cauvin-Fumay-Bertrix-Arlon-Luxemburg-Merzig-Homburg-Landau-Vaihingen(Enz)-Stuttgart-Ulm-Augsburg-Munich (every three hours)

Night Trains (1x a day):
Vienna-London (or Brussels)
Verona-London (or Brussels)
Milan-London (or Brussels)
Zagreb-London (or Brussels)
Ljubljana-London (or Brussels)
Bratislava-London (or Brussels)
Budapest-London (or Brussels)
Venice-London (or Brussels)
Bologna-London (or Brussels)
Rome-London (or Brussels)
Florence-London (or Brussels)
Naples-London (or Brussels)
Prague-London (or Brussels)
Graz-London (or Brussels)
Klagenfurt-London (or Brussels)

 

[zwk500]

Flights from London to these cities in the south of Germany-Switzerland take around 2 hours of flight time. If we factor in all the travel time to airports, baggage check-in time, customs control, taxiing, and transfer time to city centers again, it would take as much time or more than a train ride, polluting at least seven times as much as one flight.

Trains will compete with flights up to the 4-5h centre-to-centre time for the train.

I deeply believe that if a new route were to be created, it should avoid passing through Brussels because such a detour would result in a "delay" of at least 30 minutes in trips from Munich, Frankfurt and Zürich, completely making the project unfeasible.

Really? Brussels is slap bang on the direct path from London to Frankfurt:

Cologne is not much further out of the way than Lille.

At most, a compromise could be analyzed, in such a way that a new line junction would be created between Lille and Brussels (I imagine it could be here: 50°34'41.9"N 3°44'34.5"E ), in such a way that a train coming from Luxembourg could divert (to the right) to Brussels (then Amsterdam) or continue (to the left) to Lille (then London) without stopping or slowing down, thus making the much coveted route to Brussels feasible, but also allowing an almost direct route to London, thus saving a few kilometers of construction (25km).

I don't see why Luxembourg would justfiy such a monumental project when Infrabel are already investing in upgrading the Brussels-Namur-Luxembourg line to 25KV AC, and some speed upgrades could be packaged up with that.

Today it is not possible to travel by train from central London to Luxembourg in less than 5 hours (the fastest takes 5:21h), to Frankfurt it takes today 5:30h, Zürich 7:31, Stuttgart 6:35, Munich 9:06. These times can be drastically reduced as mentioned above.

Again, Luxembourg and Stuttgart are simply not significant destinations from London. Zurich is a finance town, and as such flights will almost always be the preferences as cost is less important than time. Munich is very far away from London and the market is not too big, HSR rail is unlikely to ever offer a competitive service (a sleeper might have a chance).

Milan-Zürich-Basel-London, Milan-Luzern-Basel-London, Milan-Bern-Basel-London

People will fly from the UK to Italy unless they are dedicated rail people, in which case they won't mind having a longer journey so much.

Zürich-Basel-Freiburg-Karlsruhe-Luxembourg-Lille-London, Luzern-Basel-Freiburg-Karlsruhe-Luxembourg-Lille-London, Bern-Basel-Freiburg-Karlsruhe-Luxembourg-Lille-London

Zurich and Geneva are the only places in Switzerland that matter to the UK, and the times that matter are first thing in the morning. You can get a 6am flight from Gatwick and be in Geneva before lunch (I've done it).

Friedrichshafen-Ulm-London, Friedrichshafen-Ulm-Stuttgart-Luxembourg-Lille-London, Konstanz-Singen-Stuttgart-London, Konstanz-Singen-Stuttgart-Luxembourg-Lille-London, Mulhouse-Strassbourg-Karlsruhe-London, Mulhouse-Strassbourg-Karlsruhe-Luxembourg-Lille-London

These towns are simply not big enough for any market to the UK.

Verona-Innsbruck-Munich-London, Verona-Innsbruck-Munich-Stuttgart-Luxembourg-Lille-London, Budapest-Bratislava-Vienna-Munich-Stuttgart-Luxembourg-Lille-London, Linz-Salzburg-Munich-London
Garmisch Partenkirchen-Munich-London, Garmisch Partenkirchen-Munich-Augsburg-Ulm-Stuttgart-Luxembourg-Lille-London

These may have value as 1-a-week holiday trains in peak season but Eurostar are trying to roll back away from them as they're really expensive to operate.

Budapest-Bratislava-Vienna-Linz-Salzburg-Munich-Stuttgart-Luxembourg-Lille-London

This is simply too far, and the wrong market. UK-Eastern Europe demand is from people seeking the lowest cost.

Frankfurt-London, Frankfurt-Frankfurt Airport-Mannheim-London, Frankfurt-Frankfurt Airport-Mannheim-Luxembourg-Lille-London

This is the kind of market that might work, but you'd want Frankfurt-(Koeln)-Brussels-London, not Luxembourg or Mannheim.

Another thing that your routes are not considering is the difficulty of operating over multiple different national systems. You need drivers capable of multiple languages and competent on multiple rulebooks. the Training and support workload is intense (have a look at some Eurostar staff twitter accounts). Operating a single train UK-FR-BE-DE-AU-HU is going to be hugely expensive to administer, either by regular crew swaps or having individual crews trained to a god-like level.

 

[Gaelan]

It seems to me that, short of the UK joining Schengen or on-board checks, which are both better but politically infeasible, arrival checks in London would open a lot of possibilities. It would concentrate all the border formalities in one place, allowing cross-Channel trains to go to any European station and serve intra-Schengen intermediate flows, making it possible to serve smaller cities.

It’s probably still politically infeasible, but maybe a little less so?

 

[zwk500]

It seems to me that, short of the UK joining Schengen or on-board checks, which are both better but politically infeasible, arrival checks in London would open a lot of possibilities. It would concentrate all the border formalities in one place, allowing cross-Channel trains to go to any European station and serve intra-Schengen intermediate flows, making it possible to serve smaller cities.

It’s probably still politically infeasible, but maybe a little less so?

If it was feasible, they'd be doing it already. If nothing else, St Pancras would need major reconfiguration to handle the queues. The Disney Train used to do it, but 99% of those passengers were British families returning from holiday, and the difficulty of putting checks in at Marne-le-Vallee for the few trains a day was a major problem.

Given the current discourse around illegal migration with the small boats, there is zero chance of moving checks to London on arrival.

 

[Gaelan]

If it was feasible, they'd be doing it already. If nothing else, St Pancras would need major reconfiguration to handle the queues. The Disney Train used to do it, but 99% of those passengers were British families returning from holiday, and the difficulty of putting checks in at Marne-le-Vallee for the few trains a day was a major problem.

Given the current discourse around illegal migration with the small boats, there is zero chance of moving checks to London on arrival.

Yes, yes, you’re right. But hey, we’re in speculative discussion and a girl can dream!

 

[zwk500]

Yes, yes, you’re right. But hey, we’re in speculative discussion and a girl can dream!

I think a realistic option would be to have a German Hub in/near Cologne (ideally the Hbf but could be elsewhere if needed). Then have a through ticketing and Itinerary agreement between Eurostar group and DB, and then you could have 2-hourly services calling Cologne, Brussels, Lille, London (alternating with 2-hourly Amsterdams to give an hourly London-Brussels services).

 

[lindenmeyer11]

Brussels is slap bang on the direct path from London to Frankfurt:

You got to think from "first principles". What I mean by that is that essencially London is EXACTLY where Lille Europe is. What I'm trying to say is that very likely in the next 300 years no other tunnel will be built between Europe and the UK. And as there is already an infrastructure of high-speed lines between Paris, Lille and Brussels, for practical purposes, any other route destined to London will almost certainly pass through Lille. So for visualization purposes, it would be interesting to make route decisions as if London were actually located in Lille. But of course in examples such as Amsterdam, Cologne, Hanover, Hamburg, Berlin, a connection to Brussels makes sense since it is an important city and there is already a high speed infrastructure built connecting London.

 

[zwk500]

You got to think from "first principles". What I mean by that is that essencially London is EXACTLY where Lille Europe is. What I'm trying to say is that very likely in the next 300 years no other tunnel will be built between Europe and the UK. And as there is already an infrastructure of high-speed lines between Paris, Lille and Brussels. So for practical purposes, any other route destined to London will almost certainly pass through Lille. So for visualization purposes, it would be interesting to make route decisions as if London were actually located in Lille. But of course in examples such as Amsterdam, Cologne, Hanover, Hamburg, Berlin, a connection to Brussels makes sense since it is an important city and there is already a high speed infrastructure built connecting London.

But my point is that Lille isn't *that* far out of the direct line anyway, so detouring via Brussels isn't really a big issue. Especially when it gives a large amount of connectivity by the extra call.

 

[lindenmeyer11]

But my point is that Lille isn't *that* far out of the direct line anyway, so detouring via Brussels isn't really a big issue. Especially when it gives a large amount of connectivity by the extra call.

Please visit this website to check rail routes and their speeds. I strongly doubt that there will ever be a faster route to London (from Brussels) than the current one through Lille.

OpenRailwayMap

OpenRailwayMap - An OpenStreetMap-based project for creating a map of the world's railway infrastructure.

www.openrailwaymap.org

 

[zwk500]

Please visit this website to check rail routes and their speeds. I strongly doubt that there will ever be a faster route to London (from Brussels) than the current one through Lille.

OpenRailwayMap

OpenRailwayMap - An OpenStreetMap-based project for creating a map of the world's railway infrastructure.

www.openrailwaymap.org

There won't be, unless the EU get some serious teeth, because it will need to be built by the French. However the French are very actively looking at a new LGV Picardie which will bypass Lille and run from Calais to Paris, with a potential connection to the LGVs circling Paris. With the Paris-Milan LGV also under construction, and London-Geneva or London-Italy trains will run via France. So really this new line from Lille is limited to services towards Germany only. Given the competition from flying is really over after 5h by train (especially from UK with the check-in requirement), Frankfurt is the limit of reasonable operation for any potential DE-UK train.

Frankfurt is achievable within the existing infrastructure in competitive times, with a call at Cologne and Brussels (Lille preferably skipped), so the justification for this line really does fall away as opposed to something more achievable like a Cologne-BE HSL bypassing Aachen Hbf.

There's 2 big projects I could see making a difference - Upgrading the Channel Tunnel (although problems with freight will likely block this) and upgrading Cologne-Liege to 300kph with an Aachen bypass.

 

[stuu]

The ICE/Thalys takes 110min (105 to B-Noord) for about 220km which is 120km/h with 2 stops. I doubt it could be faster without a Liege bypass which hardly makes sense.

GWR manage a quicker average speed between Paddington and Taunton, albeit with one stop, and none of which is above 200 km/h and most is no more than 160. Given how much of the route has 250km/h or higher speeds its pretty poor

 

[zwk500]

GWR manage a quicker average speed between Paddington and Taunton, albeit with one stop, and none of which is above 200 km/h and most is no more than 160. Given how much of the route has 250km/h or higher speeds its pretty poor

The High-speed sections really aren't that long, and then the Thalys is penalised heavily by having to go straight through the middle of Leuven, Liege, and Aachen with substantial lower-speed running either side. And from Liege to Aachen the HSL is 'only' 260, similarly with Aachen-Cologne (250).
A Liege bypass makes little sense as it's a big city in it's own right and provides interchange to the Southern NL as well as the Meuse valley (important Belgian industrial area). However an Aachen bypass and associated upping of the HSL speeds to 300kph might make sense.