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Future Germany to London rail link axed

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Gadget88

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See here:

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...n-db-eurostar-cancelled-shelved-a8394806.html

Deutsche Bahn (DB) said the services to London would now “not be on the agenda in the foreseeable future”, despite just last year saying they were “still interested”.

“The decisive factors are technical and economic reasons: the ICE BR 407 is not yet registered in Belgium and the economic environment has changed significantly as a result of the price competition with low-cost airlines.

As well as the uncertainty caused by Brexit potentially affecting the services, there had been some speculation in the railway industry press that the relocation of financial services to Frankfurt from London after the UK leaves the EU could increased demand for a high speed rail link...
I hope Eurostar will look at a route to Frankfurt instead.
 
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MarcVD

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Koeln HBf does not have a track that it could dedicate to E* moves.
 

Gadget88

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But the lower level of Messe/Deutz has spare capacity.
Yes I’ve been to that station it’s just across the river isn’t it? Why not just merge a few Thalys services I thought Eurostar and them are owned by the same company? They could do one service per day.
 

Gadget88

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I still say Antwerp needs a Eurostar stop it’s a large station you would think they could fit it in.
 

AlexNL

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Yes I’ve been to that station it’s just across the river isn’t it? Why not just merge a few Thalys services I thought Eurostar and them are owned by the same company? They could do one service per day.

Eurostar and Thalys are separate companies, with separate shareholders.

Eurostar: 55% SNCF, 5% SNCB, 40% Caisse de Depot et Placement du Quebec (CDPQ) + Hermes Infrastructure

Thalys International (marketing and conceptual development): 62% SNCF, 28% SNCB, 10% DB
THI Factory (TOC): 60% SNCF, 40% SNCB

I still say Antwerp needs a Eurostar stop it’s a large station you would think they could fit it in.
I suspect this is due to timetabling issues in Belgium. If Eurostar would have a better path between Brussels and Antwerp it should be possible to stop in Antwerp.
 

Gadget88

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Eurostar and Thalys are separate companies, with separate shareholders.

Eurostar: 55% SNCF, 5% SNCB, 40% Caisse de Depot et Placement du Quebec (CDPQ) + Hermes Infrastructure

Thalys International (marketing and conceptual development): 62% SNCF, 28% SNCB, 10% DB
THI Factory (TOC): 60% SNCF, 40% SNCB


I suspect this is due to timetabling issues in Belgium. If Eurostar would have a better path between Brussels and Antwerp it should be possible to stop in Antwerp.
Maybe I got confused is it the one of the TGV’s in France they own or something I’m sure I heard of old Eurostar’s being used in France.
 

Gadget88

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I read on Twitter there’s a train driver that works on both Thalys and Eurostar surprised it’s possible to do both jobs if they are separate companies?
 

AlexNL

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Maybe I got confused is it the one of the TGV’s in France they own or something I’m sure I heard of old Eurostar’s being used in France.
Back when Eurostar started, it was not a proper company like it is today but it was a joint venture formed by the three railways: SNCF, SNCB and British Rail. Each of them acquires a number of TGV-TMST trainsets, in correspondence to their share in the JV. These sets were then made available to the Eurostar operation for cross-channel services.

As the Regional Eurostar services never came to fruition, British Rail (later LCR) hired the shorter "North of London" sets to SNCF who used them on French domestic services. SNCF also used a couple of their own full-length TMST's for domestic and international services.

Nowadays, all these sets have been scrapped.

I read on Twitter there’s a train driver that works on both Thalys and Eurostar surprised it’s possible to do both jobs if they are separate companies?
This depends on who employs the driver.

Eurostar drivers based out of the UK won't drive on anything else but Eurostar trains (except if they have a side-job in France or Belgium!), but if the driver is employed by any of the continental operators (SNCF, SNCB, NS) it's likely that they're hired in by Thalys as well as Eurostar to run their trains on parts of the route.

This can be beneficial for Thalys/Eurostar, as it would reduce their staffing and training costs. For example, a Dutch driver knows all about the conventional Dutch signalling system (ATB), the high speed line signalling system (ERTMS) as well as the route into Antwerp and Brussels when coming from Amsterdam. By changing driving in Brussels, they don't have to train that driver on TVM, KVB, nor the British Rule Book. The same goes of course in the opposite direction.
 

JonathanP

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As I understand it, NS International, an arm of the Dutch national railways, acts as the operator for the Dutch section of the Eurostar services to Amsterdam, and also provide the drivers, in practice the same drivers that they provide for the Thalys services on the same route. NS International also provides drivers for some of the ICE International services to Cologne and Frankfurt, but they are separate as far as I know.

In Germany, the situation with Thalys is similar, the Thalys trains are operated by Eurobahn, a subsidary of Keolis, who provide drivers and also handle the safety case, booking of train paths etc.

I don't know what happens in France. Perhaps Thalys don't actually have any drivers of their own at all!
 

Gadget88

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Cool that makes sense back to the topic of Germany Thalys trains are quite cheap to go to Düsseldorf and Cologne. However I wanted to go to Frankfurt and found the ICE trains double the price. Perhaps as it’s a longer journey but it says Eurostar went to Germany it might bring prices down a bit.
 

JonathanP

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Well it is almost double the distance...

There is already strong competition between Thalys and DB on the Brussels - Köln route(thankfully - DB was once part of the Thalys cooperation). I'm not sure that a couple of extra trains a day mostly filled with people going to/from London would have much of an impact.
 

Gadget88

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That’s t
Well it is almost double the distance...

There is already strong competition between Thalys and DB on the Brussels - Köln route(thankfully - DB was once part of the Thalys cooperation). I'm not sure that a couple of extra trains a day mostly filled with people going to/from London would have much of an impact.

That’s true but If Eurostar can offer Amsterdam for similar price as a Brussels ticket imagine it Eurostar did operate to Germany how competitive fares would be.
 

deltic

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I find it depressing that Megabus can set up a new service virtually overnight as can the airlines - while the train companies take years - we have gone backwards rather than forwards in relation to international traffic
 

jon0844

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Brexit can't have helped encourage more expansion of train services from the UK into mainland Europe.
 

Groningen

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There is no connection possible to go from Koeln Deutz to Belgium/England. First possible option is to change direction at Gottfried-Hagen-Straße in Koeln (50.931578, 7.004524).
 
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