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The New Age Of Rail
Good news for Euro Travellers with fear of flying - and, perhaps, for eco warriors concerned about the damage aeroplanes cause to the environment. Eurostar, which currently connects London with Paris, Lille and Brussels, revealed plans for a join-the-dots network connecting several more European cities via developing high-speed lines.
Once Eurostar leaves its London Waterloo base for the refurbished St Pancras station and links to the new High Speed 1 line next year, 25 minutes will be sliced off travel times between London and Paris: Eurostar claims the average journey time on the trip will be 2 hours 15 mins.
Eurocrats will be well-served by the connections: The trip to Brussels will be quicker, while a swift change between Paris Nord and Gare de l'Est will allow Londoners to reach Strasbourg via high-speed TGV in record time when the French line opens next year.
Voyagers will be able to reach Amsterdam (after a change in Brussels) in 3 hours 30 minutes. While the same journey by air takes only an hour, travel between town centres and airports, plus security queues and the sheer unpleasantness of airport and international air travel in general make the train a much more attractive proposition.
The Times reports Eurostar's claim that a passenger travelling on one of its trains between London and Paris leaves a "carbon footprint" ten times smaller than one travelling by plane.
The former Midland Grand Hotel, one of the highlights of British Victorian Gothic architecture, still fronts St Pancras Station. The building was recently converted into a hotel and apartment complex.
