Indeed but from little acorns............With the start of the service Amsterdam - London and v.v., there will only 2 trains a day. So a drop in the ocean.
Perhaps run some of them direct, possibly at a slight premium for the reduced time?
While some people will want to get to the airport to avoid our airport taxes, many will only want to go to Amsterdam and if you're trying to compete with air, you'll want fast journey times - not a service that just connects the UK to another airport!
Agreed with replies, thanks. I think this market will indeed be as impressive as Paris. One would like to see competition though. I wonder if DB still fancies its chances?
DB should concentrate on trying to get a Koeln/Frankfurt service up and running!
I thought they hit a problem in that they cannot get the safety requirements for the ICE trains to be able to get though the tunnel.
Sam
Intresting thanks for that. Agreed DB should hurry up.the regulations were changed to facilitate this though so I agree with Kylemore that they should start focussing on it.
We will see what is offered, but I disagree that stopping additionally at Rotterdam and Antwerp is a good idea.
If this to succeed I think it can only do so if border checks etc are carried out before departure or on the train. I love travelling by train but even I find the idea of getting off and on again and spending an hour at Lille hugely unappealing.
Agreed on this Lille-type nonsense.
That's why ideally an initial service should be non-stop from one capital to the other. One could miss out the Brussels stop altogether, as there is already a service between those two capitals. Immigration at AMS and LON and that's that. Once we all have electronic passports, that's easy peazy for EU citizens, and no delay. I can exit Gatwick South from arrival at trunk to station platform, in 10 -15 mins, with my electronic passport. It renders 'Schengen' arguments redundant.
TGVs (I use the acronym like we say Hoover for vacuum cleaner) should ideally operate like aeroplanes, one origin, one destination, and competitive with air.
If the earlier poster thinks Rotterdam should enjoy its own service, then fair enough, but to my idea, keeping it simple is the key to high speed transport. Treating pax like cattle at Lille is only acceptable perhaps to those who are afraid of flying.
@Anme
If stopping at Rotterdam made commercial sense, then I would only allow pick up on the way from AMS to LON and vice versa, only set down, (yes of course I know what Schengen is BTW). But then, an extra passport control is needed at Rotterdam, unless the Lille nonsense is to be perpetuated.
Of course, I would join Schengen and have done. In the meantime non-stop services are the only way to help minimise the nuisance caused by our exclusion from membership, IMO.
The Lille problem is only solved if we have full immigration, security and customs at all entry stations (or on arrival at St Pancras, which still seems a good option)
The issue with having these just on arrival is that if anyone "illegal" presents themselves there claiming asylum, then it will be that particular country's duty to deal with it. I think.
Which we seem to cope with at airports. I can't believe that's the reason.
Bigger problems are the rather pointless requirement to do security scans of passengers (but not cars) before entering the tunnel (as noted by gsnedders), and need for passengers leaving the Schengen area to go through an emigration check.
Bigger problems are the rather pointless requirement to do security scans of passengers (but not cars)
You can see it if you look, and not even very hard!
But Rotterdam may well be a bigger source/destination of passengers than Amsterdam, not just for the city but also for connections.
Doubt it. Look at the number of LON-AMS flights compared to LON-RTM.
What is the split of Thalys usage between Amsterdam and Rotterdam?