Calais Frethun

[Anon Mouse]

I'm planning a short day trip to Calais and I wonder what facilities there are at Frethun Station. I have a long wait for a connecting RER train to Calais Ville and same on return. I know there is a free shuttle bus but I really want to do it by rail. Are there any facilities at the station, such as bar, cafe, coffee shop, comfy waiting room? Also if there is nowt there and I deccide to do some spotting is there much freight passing through the station? Cheers in advance

 

[MK Tom]

Facilities there are pretty basic. Is there no earlier ex-Boulogne service you can connect onto? I was on that line yesterday and there were several DMUs heading for Calais Ville every hour. Obviously the high speed platforms are pretty amazing for watching Eurostars but the freight will stick to the (separate) TER platforms. I saw three freights at Boulogne yesterday morning, logic dictates they probably got there via Frethun!!!

 

[Anon Mouse]

Checking the timetable (via DB's journey planner) its a lengthy wait off the 12.58 ex London and connecting onto the 21.01 ex Frethun. The connections to Boulogne look much better so I might do Boulogne instead of Calais. It also looks possible to have a reasonable time going to Boulogne first then a spin to Calais and back to Frethun. If I am gonna have a bit of a fester I think I would get bored with the Eurostars flying past but if there is a bit of freight it might add a bit more interest!

 

[MK Tom]

Boulogne's worth doing just to see the attached loco-hauled Abbeville service. But for my trip I didn't splash out on Eurostar, I got Megabus from here to Boulogne then used trains to do five towns in one day

Anyway any Boulogne-Calais Ville service will call at Frethun. So that's a bit odd. Try www.sncf.fr (if you know enough French, the English version is a very limited port of the original site that only does certain journeys and is just the RailEurope site really)

 

[Anon Mouse]

They still have loco haulage in Boulogne?? Wow, I might try to have a spin on that if I've time

My French is shocking, I can only ask for a beer haha

The timings I got, searching a random weekday was arriving at Frethun at 14.59 from London and waiting till 16.38 to Calais Ville. The return was leaving Calais Ville at 19.28 arrving at 19.37 with the Eurostar leaving at 21.01. Being Railstaff Eurostar is probably the cheapest option for me as I can (in addition to discounted Eurostar) get a PRIV Newcastle to London CIV which is much, much cheaper than a normal PRIV to London.

Saying that, I'm also considering overnighting it from London or Dover via the Eurolines coach. I got a price of £20 single from Dover to Calais on the 23.30 coach picking up from the ferry port arriving at 03.35, 3 hour journey on Eurolines where only about 10 mins in total will be in my seat!!!

 

[Oscar]

There are only two or three services each day between London and Calais Fréthun. There is usually an early morning, a lunchtime and an evening service from London. From Calais there is usually a mid-morning and evening service and at weekends also a late afternoon service. Lille Europe on the other hand is served every hour or two.

 

[MK Tom]

They still have loco haulage in Boulogne?? Wow, I might try to have a spin on that if I've time

My French is shocking, I can only ask for a beer haha

The timings I got, searching a random weekday was arriving at Frethun at 14.59 from London and waiting till 16.38 to Calais Ville. The return was leaving Calais Ville at 19.28 arrving at 19.37 with the Eurostar leaving at 21.01. Being Railstaff Eurostar is probably the cheapest option for me as I can (in addition to discounted Eurostar) get a PRIV Newcastle to London CIV which is much, much cheaper than a normal PRIV to London.

Saying that, I'm also considering overnighting it from London or Dover via the Eurolines coach. I got a price of £20 single from Dover to Calais on the 23.30 coach picking up from the ferry port arriving at 03.35, 3 hour journey on Eurolines where only about 10 mins in total will be in my seat!!!

I'm not sure about Eurolines but I got a £37 return from Milton Keynes to Boulogne with Megabus, and I know they offer that fare as far north as Leicester and Liverpool (less if booked further in advance). And as Oscar says you'll find a lot more Eurostar options if you go to Lille and come back to Calais.

Loco haulage is still quite common throughout Europe. We're the weird ones really for being so obsessed with multiple units. SNCF operate loco hauled stock on most Intercites services (Kind of like our old Intercity, while TER is like Regional Railways and Transilien is like Network South East really) and if you visit Germany or Italy you'll be alarmed by the way almost every long distance service is loco hauled.

 

[Anon Mouse]

Alarmed at how much is being passed over to units (abet in a much slower way). Before I got married I did a few trips abroad, France, Germany, Slovakia, Hungary, Holland etc etc but married life has more or less reduced me to a couple of day trips a year. The last couple of times I went to France I got Eurostar to Lille, just trying to plan something different for the next time! If only I was able to do a few days in Germany or even better, Eastern Europe!!!

 

[Oscar]

...and if you visit Germany or Italy you'll be alarmed by the way almost every long distance service is loco hauled.

I'm afraid I can't completely agree with this. While loco hauled trains are still common in the rest of Europe, they seem to be in decline there to. In Germany ICE 3 multiple units carry a lot of the long distance traffic, though ICE 1 and ICE 2 trains and many RE/RB services are loco hauled. Multiple units seem to be on the increase - new electric multiple units for the regional services and new Velaro ICE trains are being / will soon be introduced. In Italy this seems more true though while Regional and Intercity trains tend to be loco hauled and while Frecciarossa and Frecciargento trains are also loco hauled, Frecciargento trains are multiple units. The new Frecciarossa 1000 and the AGV used by Italo are also a multiple units. In France too new TGVs are multiple units.

 

[MK Tom]

I'm afraid I can't completely agree with this. While loco hauled trains are still common in the rest of Europe, they seem to be in decline there to. In Germany ICE 3 multiple units carry a lot of the long distance traffic, though ICE 1 and ICE 2 trains and many RE/RB services are loco hauled. Multiple units seem to be on the increase - new electric multiple units for the regional services and new Velaro ICE trains are being / will soon be introduced. In Italy this seems more true though while Regional and Intercity trains tend to be loco hauled and while Frecciarossa and Frecciargento trains are also loco hauled, Frecciargento trains are multiple units. The new Frecciarossa 1000 and the AGV used by Italo are also a multiple units. In France too new TGVs are multiple units.

Well yeah, I was only referring to conventional systems and not counting high-speed lines. The TGV is a bit of a weird anomaly in being a fixed multiple unit with head-end power cars. Looks like the diesel Hitachi Super Express sets will be like that too.

It is odd though how we in the UK nose-dived into MUs in a way most countries haven't done. Loco haulage does provide a noticeably higher ride quality which is something Chiltern are now cashing in on.

 

[glbotu]

I believe our "nose-dive" into Multiple Units is partly due to the shorter distances over which we operate our railway services, which means we value acceleration/deceleraton considerably more than other countries. If you look at which countries have the most multiple units, you'd see places like The Netherlands and Belgium, which are both small countries. Ride quality becomes increasingly important when travelling on the conventional lines over long distances, hence maintaining loco haulage.

 

[87015]

They still have loco haulage in Boulogne?? Wow, I might try to have a spin on that if I've time

All the Paris - Boulogne through IC services are booked loco hauled, 67400 diesels north of Amiens. There are four or five trains on weekdays and a few more at the weekends. They were previously pairs but were reduced to single locos on the same timings so they certainly have to work a bit, proper trains indeed...

 

[Anon Mouse]

All the Paris - Boulogne through IC services are booked loco hauled, 67400 diesels north of Amiens. There are four or five trains on weekdays and a few more at the weekends. They were previously pairs but were reduced to single locos on the same timings so they certainly have to work a bit, proper trains indeed...

Hmm might change my plans and do that!

 

[Mutant Lemming]

How do you get from the Cite Europe Shopping Centre to the Eurostar station ? Certain links mention a number 7 bus but the local transport site has the number 7 going somewhere completely different. Looking at the satellite map it looks close enough to walk but the route would be across the marshalling area for Eurotunnel and the alternative route seems a pretty long walk. Is there a way to get between the two without taking a bus back in to Calais town centre ?