Competing Channel tunnel trains?

[whole diary]

[stuving]

There's a report in the Journal de Dimanche today saying the channel tunnel company (currently called Getlink, for some reason) is looking into low-cost train services. I can't see it yet on the English-language continental sites, but presumably they will cover it soon.

The idea is to avoid some of the costs - high access charges on high-speed lines, fancy trains, staffing above the minimum, and using main terminals (if that costs more as well as being hard to get). So a slower service between, it suggests, Roissy CDG and Stratford could cost 25-30% less.

On a related (if only a bit) topic, I'd missed that DB^» (Deutsche Bahn - German State Railway - about) have renounced any plans to operate direct trains through the tunnels any time soon. This was in the Independent on June 16th:

Germany’s state rail operator has shelved plans for international high-speed services between London, Cologne and Frankfurt due to “changes” in the “economic environment”, The Independent has learned.

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 company would neither confirm nor deny whether uncertainty caused by floundering Brexit talks had played a part in their decision to mothball the project, saying they did not want to wade into politics.

DB had already begun early preparations to run the trains, successfully obtaining an operating certificate to run services through the Channel Tunnel in 2013 and even going as far as to display one of its sleek InterCity Express (ICE) units at London St Pancras to drum up publicity.

DB were also quoted as saying:

“The decisive factors are technical and economic reasons: the ICE BR^▸ (British Rail(ways)) 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.

Not very convincing, is it? I could believe our old friend "uncertainty over the various effects of Brexit", though.

[grahame]

The idea is to avoid some of the costs - high access charges on high-speed lines, fancy trains, staffing above the minimum, and using main terminals (if that costs more as well as being hard to get). So a slower service between, it suggests, Roissy CDG and Stratford could cost 25-30% less.

Hmmm ... the RyanAir of the railways? How about going beyond the conventional?    Motherwell - Carlisle - Skipton - Shipley - Outwood - Grantham - Peterborough - Cambridge North - Ebbsfleet - Westernhanger ...

[Richard Fairhurst]

There's a report in the Journal de Dimanche today saying the channel tunnel company (currently called Getlink, for some reason)

GET for Groupe EuroTunnel, apparently...

[eightf48544]

Perhaps cynic that I am, should we be wondering if the Channel Tunnel will survive Brsxit?

[grahame]

Perhaps cynic that I am, should we be wondering if the Channel Tunnel will survive Brsxit?

It looks like it is doing, in a stilted form

I met a lady on a train today who was/is actively involved in London to Zurich opportunities and we were having a really good chat about the market / marketing, loadings potentials (versus airline costs) etc, what the times /schedules would look like, etc.   The real killer if the extended need these days for security and passport control post-Brexit.   There's an irony in that Switzerland is not in the European Union. 

[Electric train]

Perhaps cynic that I am, should we be wondering if the Channel Tunnel will survive Brsxit?

It looks like it is doing, in a stilted form

I met a lady on a train today who was/is actively involved in London to Zurich opportunities and we were having a really good chat about the market / marketing, loadings potentials (versus airline costs) etc, what the times /schedules would look like, etc.   The real killer if the extended need these days for security and passport control post-Brexit.   There's an irony in that Switzerland is not in the European Union. 

Eurostar Yellow announce a few months ago they were looking at Lonon into Germany services with onward connections via their Eurostar Red services; so Switzerland is perhaps something they are also looking at.

Switzerland is in the Schengen Area, something the UK^▸ (United Kingdom) was never part of, so we did always had control of our boarders

Eurostar and Thalys have merged, in 2023 will be under a single brand Eurostar

[Bmblbzzz]

Perhaps cynic that I am, should we be wondering if the Channel Tunnel will survive Brsxit?

It looks like it is doing, in a stilted form

I met a lady on a train today who was/is actively involved in London to Zurich opportunities and we were having a really good chat about the market / marketing, loadings potentials (versus airline costs) etc, what the times /schedules would look like, etc.   The real killer if the extended need these days for security and passport control post-Brexit.   There's an irony in that Switzerland is not in the European Union. 

Eurostar Yellow announce a few months ago they were looking at Lonon into Germany services with onward connections via their Eurostar Red services; so Switzerland is perhaps something they are also looking at.

Switzerland is in the Schengen Area, something the UK^▸ (United Kingdom) was never part of, so we did always had control of our boarders

Eurostar and Thalys have merged, in 2023 will be under a single brand Eurostar

Is that referring to the Brussels – Berlin sleeper that's just been announced?

[Electric train]

Perhaps cynic that I am, should we be wondering if the Channel Tunnel will survive Brsxit?

It looks like it is doing, in a stilted form

I met a lady on a train today who was/is actively involved in London to Zurich opportunities and we were having a really good chat about the market / marketing, loadings potentials (versus airline costs) etc, what the times /schedules would look like, etc.   The real killer if the extended need these days for security and passport control post-Brexit.   There's an irony in that Switzerland is not in the European Union. 

Eurostar Yellow announce a few months ago they were looking at Lonon into Germany services with onward connections via their Eurostar Red services; so Switzerland is perhaps something they are also looking at.

Switzerland is in the Schengen Area, something the UK^▸ (United Kingdom) was never part of, so we did always had control of our boarders

Eurostar and Thalys have merged, in 2023 will be under a single brand Eurostar

Is that referring to the Brussels – Berlin sleeper that's just been announced?

It does not look like its part of the Eurostar group.

It is interesting to see; European Sleeper Coöperatie U.A which seems to be a Cooperative of a number of players.   Could it lead to London into Europe sleeper service?  within 10 years maybe 

[grahame]

From The Londonist

A new overnight train route has just been announced, making it easier to get to Berlin and other European cities from London.

Launching in May 2023, the European Sleeper service runs Brussels-Antwerp-Rotterdam-Amsterdam-Hanover-Berlin. With Eurostar offering direct trains between London and Brussels-Midi, this means you can get from St Pancras to Berlin with just one change.

The overnight service leaves Brussels-Midi at 7.22pm on Monday, Wednesday and Friday evenings, arriving at Berlin at 6.48am the next morning — so the Friday evening service sounds ideal for kickstarting a weekend away. Eurostar currently runs around nine direct services between London and Brussels-Midi a day, with that journey taking just over two hours. So... we're thinking leave London mid-morning, spend an afternoon in Brussels, then sleep off all those Delirium Tremens you've drunk, on the onward sleeper to Berlin.

Return journeys from Berlin to Brussels depart on Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday evenings, arriving in Brussels at 9.27am the next morning.

Even better, there are plans to extend the service to Dresden and Prague in 2024.

[stuving]

While they say "European Sleeper is organised as a cooperative", that's not in the sense of a load of artisans who do all the real work and also get together to do marketing etc. It's more like a company in the normal sense, owned and funded by shareholders. Except maybe thy have found a way of not vesting ownership with the funders - which somehow doesn't sound so noble looked at that way. They go on:

In May 2021 and within 15 minutes, European Sleeper raised €500,000 in seed capital, by selling shares to more than 350 small investors from various countries in Europe and beyond. An enthusiastic night train community, that is actively involved in the company. In 2022, we again got fully funded in our sharefunding for sleeping cars and raised €2 million.

I wonder how much train you get for €2 million?

Apart from the ownership (unknown), the main difference I can see is not the common interest they refer to. Interest in that sense is common enough among shareholders. A community interest has to be based on a group who have something else in common before getting involved in this business - trade, where they live, something they all do. Is there really a community in that sensewho use sleepers?

In this case the main difference from a normal small company is more likely to be that they don't really expect to make money, or get any back. But that's been common enough too, e.g. in local projects like flood defence and drainage, or building ports - or railways! Also, unless you have a political ideal that demands equality, you always end up with most of the money coming from a few individuals; that may be true here too. So all this is mainly a matter of using now-fashionable words for an old idea.

Their partner Sunweb, on the other hand, will be looking to make something I'm sure. They seem to be a package holiday group, but again using new words to avoid saying that (and a dose of ethics, part real and part maketing). Their forté seems to be niche marketing and running one-off of limited runs of holidays to match the market size, be that Dutch oldies going south for the sunshine (Primavera) or London twentysomethings wanting a kind of gap year with boutique hotels (Eliza was here).

[stuving]

Today's Sunday Times says the boss of HS1^▸ (High Speed line 1 - St Pancras to Channel Tunnel), Dyan Crowther, has been talking about trying to "get more destinations on the departure board", using Eurostar or other operators. This would be two or three a day, presumably shared among destinations, and to popular places for self-planned travel rather than just via package operators. Bordeaux for its wine region is the one chosen for the headline, but I suspect that's just the journalists' idea of their readers.

If HS1 do see it as in their interest to make their offer to operators more attractive, and put their weight behind developing new routes and pushing for border formalities that use less time and space in (their) St Pancras International, that can only help.

[Electric train]

Today's Sunday Times says the boss of HS1^▸ (High Speed line 1 - St Pancras to Channel Tunnel), Dyan Crowther, has been talking about trying to "get more destinations on the departure board", using Eurostar or other operators. This would be two or three a day, presumably shared among destinations, and to popular places for self-planned travel rather than just via package operators. Bordeaux for its wine region is the one chosen for the headline, but I suspect that's just the journalists' idea of their readers.

If HS1 do see it as in their interest to make their offer to operators more attractive, and put their weight behind developing new routes and pushing for border formalities that use less time and space in (their) St Pancras International, that can only help.

HS1 certainly has the capacity, not certain if Eurotunnel has much in the way of extra capacity to drastically increase what is already timetabled for Eurostar (including Disney and Ski specials) especially during the daytime at certain times of the year, Easter, and summer months.  That's not to say there are not the options to increase capacity the departure / arrival times may not be a popular times and Eurostar may have to give up some of their paths.

The through put of the HS1 departure lounge make for additional limitations with Eurostar providing all of the train operator customer facing staff, any additional operators may have to pay Eurostar or HS1 take the station operation over.


However I am in favour of more operators and destinations to make a true TransManche Link, it would fantastic to have a sleeper service for example depart London at 10pm to arrive say Berlin the next morning

[1st fan]

Today's Sunday Times says the boss of HS1^▸ (High Speed line 1 - St Pancras to Channel Tunnel), Dyan Crowther, has been talking about trying to "get more destinations on the departure board", using Eurostar or other operators. This would be two or three a day, presumably shared among destinations, and to popular places for self-planned travel rather than just via package operators. Bordeaux for its wine region is the one chosen for the headline, but I suspect that's just the journalists' idea of their readers.

If HS1 do see it as in their interest to make their offer to operators more attractive, and put their weight behind developing new routes and pushing for border formalities that use less time and space in (their) St Pancras International, that can only help.

HS1 certainly has the capacity, not certain if Eurotunnel has much in the way of extra capacity to drastically increase what is already timetabled for Eurostar (including Disney and Ski specials) especially during the daytime at certain times of the year, Easter, and summer months.  That's not to say there are not the options to increase capacity the departure / arrival times may not be a popular times and Eurostar may have to give up some of their paths.

The through put of the HS1 departure lounge make for additional limitations with Eurostar providing all of the train operator customer facing staff, any additional operators may have to pay Eurostar or HS1 take the station operation over.


However I am in favour of more operators and destinations to make a true TransManche Link, it would fantastic to have a sleeper service for example depart London at 10pm to arrive say Berlin the next morning

Yeah except that the Nightstar project was a non starter (saying that, they did make a decent start on the rolling stock) The specifications for tunnel sleeper trains were complicated from memory as they had to comply with standards of each country they were expecting to be travelling through. On top of that the hotel power requirements were huge, still I agree it would be very nice to do.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nightstar_(train)

[Electric train]

Today's Sunday Times says the boss of HS1^▸ (High Speed line 1 - St Pancras to Channel Tunnel), Dyan Crowther, has been talking about trying to "get more destinations on the departure board", using Eurostar or other operators. This would be two or three a day, presumably shared among destinations, and to popular places for self-planned travel rather than just via package operators. Bordeaux for its wine region is the one chosen for the headline, but I suspect that's just the journalists' idea of their readers.

If HS1 do see it as in their interest to make their offer to operators more attractive, and put their weight behind developing new routes and pushing for border formalities that use less time and space in (their) St Pancras International, that can only help.

HS1 certainly has the capacity, not certain if Eurotunnel has much in the way of extra capacity to drastically increase what is already timetabled for Eurostar (including Disney and Ski specials) especially during the daytime at certain times of the year, Easter, and summer months.  That's not to say there are not the options to increase capacity the departure / arrival times may not be a popular times and Eurostar may have to give up some of their paths.

The through put of the HS1 departure lounge make for additional limitations with Eurostar providing all of the train operator customer facing staff, any additional operators may have to pay Eurostar or HS1 take the station operation over.


However I am in favour of more operators and destinations to make a true TransManche Link, it would fantastic to have a sleeper service for example depart London at 10pm to arrive say Berlin the next morning

Yeah except that the Nightstar project was a non starter (saying that, they did make a decent start on the rolling stock) The specifications for tunnel sleeper trains were complicated from memory as they had to comply with standards of each country they were expecting to be travelling through. On top of that the hotel power requirements were huge, still I agree it would be very nice to do.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nightstar_(train)

The world has changed a bit in the 30 years since the tunnel opened and near on 40 years since the rail link between the UK^▸ (United Kingdom) and Europe was commenced.

First now we have HS1 and not the original slow route.
Europe has a much bigger network of highspeed lines
There is a bigger green agenda now.
The regulations on the rolling stock has changed the Siemens Class 374 do not have all of the inter coach fire doors that the Class 373 have

I was not advocating the same "Regional" type of service of the 1990's I was suggesting a London St Pancras to places like Berlin.  Who knows, although there is no direct connection between HS1 and HS2^▸ (The next High Speed line(s)) being planned in years to come a link could be established which would allow a Scotland / North of England to Paris sleeper

 

[1st fan]

Yep the question I keep coming back to is would there be enough of a market for this overnight service to make it viable?