Hi Albert, hi all,
Great post, I couldn't agree with you more. In days-gone-by when it was common place to make long distance journeys that included rail-sea-rail often had well integrated facilities and simple cheap through ticketing as you describe at Dover, Calais, Folkestone, Dieppe, Cherbourg, Oostende, Stranraer, Larne and many more all come to mind. All of which have long been neglected and some sadly since closed completely, having fallen victim to new high-speed links and of course the budget airlines boom..
I also think it was foolish to remove these well integrated train-ferry-train links, as some 25+ years on people are slowly becoming aware of the global climate crisis and looking to alternatives to flying short-haul.
I suppose such links could be easily reinstated in some places but of course it all comes down to money, politics, will for it to happen or lack thereof...
Newhaven-Dieppe still makes London-Paris by night possible, relatively cheaply but sadly now with a bit of walking on the Dieppe side as the port has been relocated out of town. I did this last year, 377 from VIC to Lewes, then down the branch to Newhaven Town -(not Marine or even harbour now!), few minute walk into the new terminal and onto what must have been my shortest bus journey ever a couple of hundred meters to the linkspan, everyone off and walk down the ramp onto the cardeck of the good ship, Côte D’Albatre. Went upstairs to the restaurant for a quick bite and half bottle of rosé before collapsing over some seats for the few hours over to Dieppe for the same inreverse before the trek to la Gare for the brand new kart to Rouen to pick up a BB 15000 on a crowded VO2N set full of Normandie commuters into Saint-Lazare..
Dover-Calais on the other hand is as you describe a real pity as both Dover Western Docks and Calais-Maritime are of course now long gone necessitating a twenty minute walk or taxis on each side. The fun part in going to Paris this way sadly ends on Sunday when the BB 67400 / BB 22200 hauled Corail trains finish for good after more than forty years..
Boulogne-sur-Mer too is a tragedy, the ferries to la Gare Maritime stopped in 2009, trains had already long stopped back in the 90's I believe?
But the regional council funded A LOT of taxpayers money in building the new "Hub Port" out of town by the old Hoverport at Le Portal, only for Speed Ferries to go bankrupt a year later.
The brand new port facilities remain unused and derelict nearly ten years on with no signs of anyone wanting to reopen the route, it has hurt the town bad..
Oostende is shadow of its former self and a shame as there is still so much potential there with the linkspan right beside the platforms but unused since Transeuropa Ferries through in the towel with the route to/from Ramsgate back in 2013.
Then there was recently hope of new beginnings and jobs created in both Ramsgate and Oostende with Seaborne Freight's ill fated "brexit ferry", they even said they hoped to carry foot passengers when they got started but I guess that too is now out of the window..
I suppose there is still the western channel routes from Portsmouth and Poole to Le Havre, Cherbourg, Ouistreham, Saint-Malo and Roscoff but I've never went that way so dunno how easy the boat to train transfer is over there?
Then you still have Hull-Zeebrugge with a bus from the station in Hull and a ten-fifteen minute walk down the port ramp to Zeebrugge Strand station (when its open) for onward train to Brugge / Gent / Brussel or wherever.
Harwich-Hoek van Holland will be the best remaining example again when (if..?) the metro conversion is ever finished. Hopefully the excellent Dutchflyer CIV through ticketing will remain too with validity of the metro and the possibility to book a return journey from any NS station to any Greater Anglia station, at present this is only possible in the outward direction I believe?
On the Irish Sea, Larne is still a great train-ferry interchange port but alas, Cairn on the other side is not, although there is a bus to the old station in Stranraer for train onward to Glasgow (now via Killie, or change at Ayr for faster), unfortunately none of the cheap rail&sail tickets are valid this way anymore as they are routed via Stena's direct Belfast service with bus all the way to Ayr to pick up the train, which means you now have to buy separate train+ferry+train tickets to follow the traditional route.
Until 2015, P&O sailed Larne-Troon which was a lot more handy for the train.
Never done Belfast-Liverpool? Hamilton Square Mersey Rail station easily accessible from the port??
Holyhead as mentioned up-thread remains well rail connected albeit with the linkspan relocated and thus now involves a port bus on both ends.
Further south, Fishguard-Rosslare is now a dogs dinner.. The timetable was completely screwed up a year or so ago and now this route is only useful to rail passengers in one direction East>West. Going the other way, the morning boat leaves too early to be reached by any train from Wexford or Dublin and the line to Waterford was of course sadly closed in 2010.
The night boat and train is now totally useless, unless of course you live in Carmarthen as it now runs no further, dumping you there in the dead of night. A real pity as this used to continue to Swansea to connect there with the HST to Paddington until recently, making a cheap overnight journey in the direction Dublin-London possible this way.
Bizarrely there is now a "night train to nowhere" from Manchester Piccadilly, which leaves about 19:30, arriving into Fishguard around 02:30, where there is no boat for many hours!
I think this unit then forms the aforementioned useless Carmarthen train.
On the other side, the timetable is also not great with long waits between the ferry and train on the connections that do work.
To top this off, none of the through CIV tickets to any station in GB/IE are routed through here anymore, they are all routed through Dublin port (pay for bus / taxi to city centre separately..), which defeats the purpose of the integrated train-ferry-train port facilities in Fishguard/Rosslare with through CIV ticketing! Now you can only buy rail&sail tickets to/from Rosslare Europort and have to buy a separate ticket for the CIÉ train.
And as has already been mentioned up-thread, the fact that the platform has unnecessarily been moved from the berths to half a mile from the terminal is also a step in the backward direction, -did CIÉ really fear the IRA was planning to bomb the Fishguard ferry?!
This one really does need sorting out!!
Just my experiences / opinions but sadly I don't see much hope of integrated rail facilities at ports coming back where they have disappeared due to a number of reasons, including; an abundance of budget airlines, high-speed links, privatisation, fragmentation, disappearance of through ticketing and general incompetence as mentioned above...