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Regional (NoL) Eurostars

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Drifter47

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Does anyone have any information or can recall what the arrangements were back in 1995 when Eurostar started a regional service from, I believe Scotland, thorough to Paris via Waterloo? We were living in Lincolnshire at the time and were eagerly anticipating the introduction of the Regional Eurostars that we regularly spotted being trialled through the night up and down the ECML. As an aside I believe we also spotted one stabled in Strasbourg in those early days.

My wife and I are just reminiscing that this being Eurostar's 25 years anniversary and our first journey. This was before we had internet and tickets went on sale for travel straight through to Paris on what we thought one of those reginal sets and we had to go to Newark (Notts) rather than Peterborough. Scheduled serviced arrived but it was a HST leased from possibly Porterbrook? which was practically devoid of passengers.
 
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Mag_seven

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The intended Regional Eurostar service never got off the ground mainly due to the emergence of low cost airlines.
 
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Drifter47

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Yes that's very true and I have a long time ago seen much of what was said in Parliament when, I think the Transport Select Committee, summoned the great and the good to explain to them why it didn't succeed. One, possibly an urban myth now, was the government of the day wanted the Channel Bill being passed they needed the support of those Members in the north of Britain and Scotland so this was what was on offer to them - Regional Eurostars all the way through the tunnel and Paris & beyond. The longer journeys, overnight on the Nightstars.
 
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route101 said:
Where did the HST routes from Waterloo go?
Click to expand...

There was one to/from Manchester Piccadilly also. Used to see it most evenings arriving at Stockport whilst conveying mails to/from said station, the passenger loadings wouldn't have filled a class 139 most days.
 
30907

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Still from memory:
Manchester via Brum, Edinburgh via (Leeds? and) Newcastle. Once daily, in and out of Waterloo early afternoon.
There was a Cardiff train, but wasn't it a 158? Or was that a later replacement?
 
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Mag_seven

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30907 said:
There was a Cardiff train, but wasn't it a 158? Or was that a later replacement?
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It was an HST to begin with - it ran via the GWML and Acton Bank/Kensington Olympia. It was later superseded by a 158 that went via Bristol Temple Meads / Westbury / Salisbury.
 
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mm333

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MotCO said:
What route did this take to get to Waterloo?
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According to https://kentrail.org.uk/eurostar_intercity_125.htm “services from Edinburgh were routed via the North London Incline, Camden Road, Gospel Oak, Willesden High Level, the West London Line, and Sheepcote Lane Curve. Those from Manchester were routed via Willesden Junction, the West London Line, and Sheepcote Lane Curve.”

See the old thread at https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/regional-eurostar-connecting-services-mid-90s.72913/
 
30907

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Mag_seven said:
It was an HST to begin with - it ran via the GWML and Acton Bank/Kensington Olympia. It was later superseded by a 158 that went via Bristol Temple Meads / Westbury / Salisbury.
Click to expand...
Thanks. And (cutting a long story short) that's one reason why we have a Waterloo-Bristol route today.
 
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Drifter47

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I recall that there was serious engineering on that North London section of the route presumably for the NoL sets. A bit of a convoluted route with a one point we were on the West Coast route and passing the North Pole depot and it was either there or nearby the driver changed ends so to continue to Waterloo.

Interesting route though as we experienced parts of London previously unseen and unknown, under Earls Court and its pool and over what I believe was the Battersea Rail Bridge. Oh and seeing the faces of those commuters waiting on the platforms at Camden Town as the IC125 screeched through the station.
 
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