Could a second Channel Tunnel be built to increase capacity?

[AM9]

I certainly agree that St Pancras could do with a complete rebuild - EMR, Southeastern and Eurostar could all do with extra capacity, and the current layout is very inefficient and confusing (including the tube station) and can massively be improved.

What do you mean by "St Pancras could do with a complete rebuild"? It is a grade 1 listed building so before the cost is even considered, you would need a plan including a justification to interfere with any of the original 1868 structure or any of its intenal furniture.
Also, St Pancras doesn't have a 'tube' station.

 

[Bald Rick]

and the current layout is very inefficient and confusing (including the tube station) and can massively be improved.

How, exactly, can it be improved?

Personally I don’t find it at all confusing, and never have.

 

[cle]

Re your first para not a chance of the Home Office agreeing to that.

I don't think it's that crazy, hardly Schengen or the dreaded on-train checks. Just a barrier which opens for the front portion of the platform... this platform should be the least used anyway - so it's more for stabling and then if all the others are full (which is basically never). I expect it'd be far better used for more Kent services.

Amsterdam do this just fine, and it has the same controls outbound.

 

[London Trains]

Also, St Pancras doesn't have a 'tube' station.

Obviously I'm referring to King's Cross St Pancras when I say tube station.

 

[cle]

It's pretty far - especially the 'tube lines', so I can't see how that would be better, without making the layout even more complicated. Come out the taxi/GN side, and enter the Kings X tube complex, is much better.

Or use Thameslink if you can! It certainly covers off Finsbury Park, Kentish Town, Farringdon and London Bridge/Elephant well enough. And anyone insane enough to ride to Blackfriars on the tube...

 

[paul1609]

Ha. Quick back of envelope calc suggests you’d need 2-3 million miles of rail to scrap to pay for it!

I guess that you know that I know.

If anything, I'd make the eastern most platform available for more SE services, but still dynamic if needed - given E* is underutilized.

Ebbsfleet in an ideal world should have tons more housing, commercial and from a rail point of view, have a North Kent service (rebuild/re-design/integrate Northfleet) which could also be a Crossrail terminus. It won't happen of course, but it should really be a hub. Would be much more viable as a regional parkway.

You'd need a dynamic platform edge to achieve that. 395s can't call at International Platforms it really is a big gap both vertically and horizontally.

 

[Peterthegreat]

There are no capacity issues in the tunnel, at least for long distance passenger trains.
Under the terms of the usage agreement the railways are entitled to 50% of the tunnel capacity-both for the whole day and for each hour. There are also back to back agreements between Eurostar and DB Cargo as successors to BR and SNCF.
Normally trains can operate 3 minutes apart so in theory there are 20 paths per hour or 10 for the railways.
Under normal circumstances Eurostar's are pathetic through the tunnel in 21 minutes as against a standard tunnel pathway of 26 minutes.
Even in 21 minutes there is capacity for 4 Eurostar's per hour (2 sets of flighted train 30 minutes apart). As stated elsewhere that is more than the terminal at St Pancras can currently handle.
However assuming St Pancras can handle more then it would be possible to slow Eurostar down for a 26 minute tunnel transit offering up to ten trains per hour (up to 9,000 passengers per hour!).

 

[Wolfie]

I certainly agree that St Pancras could do with a complete rebuild - EMR, Southeastern and Eurostar could all do with extra capacity, and the current layout is very inefficient and confusing (including the tube station) and can massively be improved.

Not so easy for a much loved Grade 1 listed building.

I don't think it's that crazy, hardly Schengen or the dreaded on-train checks. Just a barrier which opens for the front portion of the platform... this platform should be the least used anyway - so it's more for stabling and then if all the others are full (which is basically never). I expect it'd be far better used for more Kent services.

Amsterdam do this just fine, and it has the same controls outbound.

Amsterdam is not the UK. The Home Office wanted a separate area for Eurostar and won't compromise on that.

 

[cle]

'The Home Office' is, thankfully, a fairly nebulous place. I'd expect it to get a little more friendly to the outside, in the coming years.

 

[Wolfie]

'The Home Office' is, thankfully, a fairly nebulous place. I'd expect it to get a little more friendly to the outside, in the coming years.

As someone who worked there, albeit not thankfully in immigration, for quite a period l wouldn't hold your breath on that if l was you. If anything l'd expect things to get worse, at least prior to the next general election.

 

[AM9]

Obviously I'm referring to King's Cross St Pancras when I say tube station.

Not that obvious. You may have (erroneously) been referring to the Circle/Met/Hammersmith & City line SSL platforms, nos. 1&2. They are actually located beneath Euston Road between its junctions with Midland Road and Pancras Road resulting in them being directly in front of St Pancras staion and somewhat remote from Kings Cross frontage.

 

[mr_jrt]

Unfortunately, the only suitable rebuild of St Pancras is the one that can never happen - what should have been done in the first place - HS1 terminating in a new station on the former goods depot site currently occupied by the British Library. You would have room for all the platforms you could want, then, not to mention there would be room in St. Pancras for more MML platforms, too. Hell, part of me wonders if there would have been enough room for HS2 to terminate there as well.

 

[SynthD]

Plenty of room, if you demolish the properties to the north.

Alternatively, what if the retail was from Pancras Rd to Kings Blvd, taking over the south half of that site, with shelter from the weather. Leave the stations for passengers, especially Eurostar departures.

 

[popeter45]

Alternatively, what if the retail was from Pancras Rd to Kings Blvd, taking over the south half of that site, with shelter from the weather. Leave the stations for passengers, especially Eurostar departures.

or if they wanted to stay at st Pancras move all the shops from the arcade up to the concorse and recover the arcade to become more eurostar check in

end of the day the assumtions made for the 2007 move have for good (higher demand) and bad (brexit checks) proven to no longer fit eurostars needs

 

[cle]

As someone who worked there, albeit not thankfully in immigration, for quite a period l wouldn't hold your breath on that if l was you. If anything l'd expect things to get worse, at least prior to the next general election.

I agree, I think the populist lurch may continue as a strategic stupidity to win over swing voters. Hoping the villain mask comes off after that and we return to something more EU and World friendly. Ultimately it’s an office of civil servants delivering against politically motivated goals, it should flex enough for a platform working. I think Kent services should be the default and E* the exception/stabling - if paths worked for that and E* didn’t grow.

 

[HSTEd]

I think a more important infrastructure change, if you wanted to make a serious go at domestic passengers at St Pancras, would be to admit that no eurostar services will ever stop at Stratford International.

If the platforms are rebuilt to domestic height that would significantly simplify timetabling for the Kent services and allow increase in capacity.

 

[zwk500]

I think a more important infrastructure change, if you wanted to make a serious go at domestic passengers at St Pancras, would be to admit that no eurostar services will ever stop at Stratford International.

If the platforms are rebuilt to domestic height that would significantly simplify timetabling for the Kent services and allow increase in capacity.

Would it? The problem is not consecutive SE's waiting for a platform, but the physics of stopping a train on a line when other trains move very fast, and the difficulty for journey time competitiveness if they were fully looped.

Reopening Ebbsfleet is a practical answer to the St Pancras capacity challenge, unless you go to the expense and bother of making structural changes to St Pancras or get the passport regime overhauled.

 

[HSTEd]

Would it? The problem is not consecutive SE's waiting for a platform, but the physics of stopping a train on a line when other trains move very fast, and the difficulty for journey time competitiveness if they were fully looped.

Yes, if four domestic platforms were available at Stratford instead of two it would allow a domestic train to be signalled into the station simultaneously with one departing the station in the same direction into the same path.

That would increase the number of domestic paths that can be fitted on the upper section of HS1.

If you tried that with two platforms it would cause a delay of a few seconds to rapidly snowball to the following train ending up afoul of the main running lines and the timetable collapsing.

 

[zwk500]

Yes, if four domestic platforms were available at Stratford instead of two it would allow a domestic train to be signalled into the station simultaneously with one departing the station in the same direction into the same path.

That would increase the number of domestic paths that can be fitted on the upper section of HS1.

Planning headway 3 minutes, dwell time 1 minute and reoccupation value for domestic platforms of 2 minutes. 2 additional platforms do not offer an increase in plannable capacity, as theoretical maximum of flighted trains is the same.

 

[Sir Felix Pole]

The passport control requirements (i.e. a stamp) for entry into Schengen countries will be replaced by the electronic entry/exit system (EES) - scheduled now for 2024. This will go a long way to ease the current problems at St. Pancras. There is plenty of capacity for additional trains were Eurostar so minded, but sadly they seem intent on retreating back to the core service.

 

[KGX]

I assumed Eurostar had been pursuing a fewer passengers at higher revenue strategy.
I don't buy the capactity issues. They have chosen to curtail Ashford, Ebbsfleet & never operate from Stratford to save money.
Another tunnel is certainly not required & they should be forced to serve the intermediary stations or step aside.

 

[Peterthegreat]

A

I assumed Eurostar had been pursuing a fewer passengers at higher revenue strategy.
I don't buy the capactity issues. They have chosen to curtail Ashford, Ebbsfleet & never operate from Stratford to save money.
Another tunnel is certainly not required & they should be forced to serve the intermediary stations or step aside.

And how are you going to "force" a private company to serve the stations?

 

[zwk500]

I don't buy the capactity issues.

Why not? What possible reason would Eurostar have not to sell tickets on their most popular services other than the reason they've given?

 

[Wolfie]

I assumed Eurostar had been pursuing a fewer passengers at higher revenue strategy.
I don't buy the capactity issues. They have chosen to curtail Ashford, Ebbsfleet & never operate from Stratford to save money.
Another tunnel is certainly not required & they should be forced to serve the intermediary stations or step aside.

The majority of passengers have zero desire to stop at those intermediate stations and Border Force has much higher priorities than manning them.

 

[KGX]

Why not? What possible reason would Eurostar have not to sell tickets on their most popular services other than the reason they've given?

Running less services. More services could spread capacity. Although they don't like the UK track access charges being higher than in France.
Less stations. More stations could spread capacity & fill up existing trains. Although the may not want to pay to staff the additional stations.
What reason?
Cost control. Restrict capacity to X level. Sell tickets at a higher price. Save £ on operational costs of running a higher capacity service.

 

[zwk500]

Running less services. More services could spread capacity. Although they don't like the UK track access charges being higher than in France.
Less stations. More stations could spread capacity & fill up existing trains. Although the may not want to pay to staff the additional stations.
What reason?
Cost control. Restrict capacity to X level. Sell tickets at a higher price. Save £ on operational costs of running a higher capacity service.

Cost control is not opening the intermediate stations.

Everything else says Eurostar would make more money if they ran more trains. They price tickets dynamically, so prices increase as trains fill up.

 

[morellius]

No? Why do there need to be connecting flights to anywhere? Which part of the climate emergency is this not comprehending?

May I dare say that describing climate change as an emergency is a particular way of articulating things, which leads to the measures you described, like banning flights, flight shaming and making it unaffordable for working class people to travel outside their country.
Taking these measures (flight bans or making travel prohibitively expensive through taxation) is not an inevitability, rather it is a political choice and I do not see our electorate making this choice anytime this century, no matter how serious climate change consequences become…

 

[HSTEd]

May I dare say that describing climate change as an emergency is a particular way of articulating things, which leads to the measures you described, like banning flights, flight shaming and making it unaffordable for working class people to travel outside their country.
Taking these measures (flight bans or making travel prohibitively expensive through taxation) is not an inevitability, rather it is a political choice and I do not see our electorate making this choice anytime this century, no matter how serious climate change consequences become…

The reality is a huge portion of the population do not travel outside the UK.
Indeed in the years before coronavirus pretty much ~50% of the population reported zero flights outside the UK in the previous year.

And flights far outstrip all other mechanisms for international travel.

International travel is, and remains, a plaything of the upper and middle classes.

 

[Bald Rick]

International travel is, and remains, a plaything of the upper and middle classes.

Im not sure about that. You only have to spend half an hour at Luton arrivals to know that’s not true.

Clearly the propensity to fly increases with wealth, but I’d suggest a major factor is age and health. 25% of the population are under 10 or over 70, and I’d contend people in these age groups are much less likely to fly.

 

[Magdalia]

International travel is, and remains, a plaything of the upper and middle classes.

25% of the population are under 10 or over 70, and I’d contend people in these age groups are much less likely to fly.

Neither of these match my experience.

Migration, both inward and outward, means that 21st century families can be very dispersed. I know plenty of grandparents who fly to visit their grandchildren, and plenty of grandparents who have their grandchildren flying in to visit them.

That's not class related.

On the other hand I know people whose families all live close by and some of these have never been to London, never mind going abroad.