I don't think it will get worse, though I would support reopening Ashford for other reasons, provided it doesn't remove staff from StP
Only if you can get enough extra French border officials to not have to take any away from St Pancras, which isn't just about money, but also about the number of border officials available for outposting to the UK
That's right Ashford International is 13 miles from the Chanel Tunnel about 20 mins in a minibus.
Ideal for Kent but not for anyone else from the UK that uses Eurostar. You would be moving the "Bedlam" a few yards from Eurostar to the SE Javlin platforms at St Pancras. Adding inconvenience to those passengers who do not live in Kent, having to get to London then out to Ebbsfleet and Ashford, with the inconvenience of lugging luggage between trains. The trains would be under used coming from Europe as who wants to go to Ashford or Ebbsfleet. It would increase the bedlam at St Pancras, as you would be removing Eurostars from there. And people being clued up, would not travel to Ebbsfleet and Ashford, but book on the services that start in London, or opt to return to air travel.
Is it really convenient to start trains at Ashford, just for the handfull who quite happily travel to Lillie, to inconvenient the other hundreds who do not live in Kent? I think Ashford should have a few Eurostars call there, to perhaps pick the handfull up, but there is no convenience starting/terminating trains there except for residents in Kent.
When you look at the current timetable and compare it to pre-Brexit they could easily do both. St Pancras - Paris used to be hourly all day with half hourly at other times. To me the most important thing is to restore hourly, but if they were going to use the 2nd Path a stopping service makes sense (if it can be pathed). I understand Eurostar has 4 paths per hour through the tunnel.
I would agree, Sussex I am sure would rather use Ashford. That is a large area of people.
The current driving tome form -say Salisbury to St Pancras is about 2 1/4 hors whereas the journey to Ashford is over 2 1/2 hours. I doubt that many seats will be sold to passengers starting from Wiltshire anyway, - the population of the whole county is less than two of the average London boroughs. Taking in all those counties where passing through London isn't necessarily the fastes way to Ashford, (i.e. Ken, East Sussex, West Sussex, Surrey, Hampshire, Dorset and Wiltshire, their combined population is still less than that of London, so really just on the basis of personal cost or convenience, a case for reopening Ashford International is a non-starter.
Ebbsfleet and Ashford cannot take the queues either, customs and security capacity for a whole train is not provided. There was a thread in December about the reaction to the Thames Tunnel closure, and it was explained then that neither station is designed to cope with terminating trains other than in an emergency.
I don’t disagree that it’s a non-starter and doubt it will ever happen.
Also, I doubt whether the border facilities have been updated ready for all the new procedures. It would be a perfect time during an extended closure to do such work, but I doubt the organisations concerned would want to bear the expenditure until they absolutely have to.
Not sure if anyone is really saying reverse them there, just say having the following from St Pancras (in principle)
But would there be a genuinely lower cost for providing such trains (and the tickets for domestic train connections)? Doubt it, so why would 'they' consider such an action?
I dont think that financially any of these schemes is likely but from a practical point of view Ashford is far the best solution on the grounds that it has three wholy independent routes to London: St Pancras via HS1, Victoria via Maidstone East, Charing Cross/Waterloo East/London Bridge via Tonbridge plus the local connections along the South coast and to East Kent.
The problem with services calling at Stratford, Ebbsfleet and Ashford is that all 3 locations are going to need border staff, and one of the issues with St Pancras is the ability to process passengers through border control. So do you have additional staff at all 3 locations if so that it going to add to costs, even if staff can be found and probably wont happen, or do you redeploy from St Pancras which just makes St Pancras worse.
At what price point would people switch to Ashford? For people travelling from a wide area north of London St Pancras is the obvious choice. Anyone whose starting station is on the ECML, MML, Thameslink or with a short walk WCML would prefer to start from St Pancras. Could SE high speed services cope with even 1/2 a Eurostars worth of passengers and luggage per hour to say Ashford in addition to their current loading.
Only the original poster’s thread title? Surely ‘starting‘ some trains at Ebbsfleet or Ashford implies terminating there too?
What was happening before was that people were using Ashford as a railhead, driving down the night before staying overnight in a hotel. Theres plenty of long term parking and then getting a train next morning. The Disneyland train with families was particularly busy. Ive seen platform 4 (International Southbound) absolutely packed as the train pulls in from London. Paris trains werealso busy.
I think you might be underestimating the cost of taking a vehicle across the Channel
