Potential City Night Line Routes From London St Pancras

[johnnychips]

(Doncaster to Vilnius anyone?).

Done it. Beautiful city (Vilnius, not Donny) and Lithuanian railways very interesting.

 

[coupwotcoup]

From a selfish point of view, I would love to see an earlier Eurostar
train from SP to GdN, say around 4am and stopping at Lille.
This would allow for decent connections on to the South of France and
Spain.
London is easy to access - if like me you live inside the Magic Roundabout -
and I am sure there would be many, like me, who'd prefer an early start.

 

[jon0844]

I said a long time ago (and got loads of grief for suggesting it) that Eurostar should run some trains through the night.

Whether you've been out in Paris for an evening, or coming back from travelling from further into mainland Europe, a train during the night could be ideal to just get people home - without having to stay in a hotel overnight.

Has Eurostar ever looked into doing any research to show if there would be any demand? Surely the tunnel isn't taken up purely with lorries using the tunnel at night? I presume the car trains run 24/7 too?

 

[Bald Rick]

I said a long time ago (and got loads of grief for suggesting it) that Eurostar should run some trains through the night.

Whether you've been out in Paris for an evening, or coming back from travelling from further into mainland Europe, a train during the night could be ideal to just get people home - without having to stay in a hotel overnight.

Has Eurostar ever looked into doing any research to show if there would be any demand? Surely the tunnel isn't taken up purely with lorries using the tunnel at night? I presume the car trains run 24/7 too?

It's not the tunnel, but HS1 and LGV-N both close most nights for maintenance. Keeping track in place for 300kph trains isn't that easy.

 

[jon0844]

Can they not keep one line open to operate bi-directionally?

Even if you just started with weekends, I feel a train or two during the night would be viable. Or perhaps if/when we get shorter trains running through the tunnel (18 coaches might be a bit much).

 

[radamfi]

Don't night trains in Europe run on classic lines anyway? So a proposed night train from London to mainland Europe would probably not run from St Pancras and would probably not use HS1. But then there would be gauging issues.

 

[cle]

I would think it'd run down HS1 to the tunnel, and then on a mixture in France and then on classic lines the further it got from the 'core' - might be too slow if it didn't run HS from Calais to join the main line out of Paris south of Disney.

 

[jon0844]

If it wasn't for third rail issues, the ideal way for a sleeper to come to London would be to terminate and 'stable' at Waterloo, using the old route.

However, that isn't going to happen but I could see a sleeper service that starts somewhere along HS1 and doesn't take up space at St Pancras, with people simply getting a shuttle from London to Ebbsfleet/Stratford/Ashford or wherever - even a new station if they became more viable in the future.

 

[LexyBoy]

I only once travelled on a European cross-border sleeper train prior to the Schengen Agreement and IIRC, the steward took our passports away upon boarding. I doubt that would be acceptable these days in this part of the world [...]

I've had this happen within Europe a couple of times within the last few years, so it doesn't seem to be a huge problem. I don't think it would be acceptable for UKBA though!

Full border checks at St Pancras seem the obvious solution, unless the stopping pattern is limited only to principal stations where checks can be done (London-Zurich non-stop?).

Equally I love to go to Rome but I don't particularly like the existing offering by rail which gets me there for about 10pm local time after travelling all day and being tired, would much rather arrive at the more sociable time of 9am or 10am.

You already can, there's a sleeper from Paris to Rome - and very popular it is too.

Don't night trains in Europe run on classic lines anyway? So a proposed night train from London to mainland Europe would probably not run from St Pancras and would probably not use HS1. But then there would be gauging issues.

Sleeper stock would have to be built to continental gauge to have any chance of being economically viable - not only can you fit more beds in, but construction costs would be higher for a custom design to fit within UK loading gauge.

I guess usage of HS1 wouldn't be too much of a problem if departures were sufficiently late; with 125 mph sleeper stock and a layover in Ashford to allow passing traffic I'd think it would be possible to avoid conflicts with Eurostar. But of course too late and you can't get far before it's too late on day 2 to be attractive.

 

[Oscar]

You already can, there's a sleeper from Paris to Rome - and very popular it is too.

Unfortunately the sleeper has been temporarily suspended from December 2011 until December 2012 due to issues concerned with a change of operator.

 

[LexyBoy]

Oh, didn't know that. Hope it gets up and running again!