Eurostar running trains with empty seats

[Trainbike46]

I didn't know there was an arrivals lounge. What is the point of it? Don't passengers walk straight off the train onto the street or wherever?

At St Pancras you wonder through an arrivals hall of sorts. It's used to check the Disneyland passengers passports as there was a separate agreement to exempt them from the normal juxtaposed controls. However it's fairly small and can't be easily integrated into the departures area. The Customs lanes would need to stay in any event.

There isn't although the arrivals area is probably bigger than need be and is being scaled back.

I just realised seat61 is in fact reporting that there are plans to use the arrivals area for departures, as well as increasing the number of passport control lanes to increase capacity again:

Eurostar plan to increase the number of passport control lines from 7 to 9, and will convert part of the arrivals hall into additional check-in space. They plan to trial an 'online check-in' later this year, and to automate as much as possible of the new ETIAS (European visa) arrangements when they come in, probably now in 2024. They hope that these measures will restore capacity to what it was before the double disasters of the pandemic and Brexit.

The Man in Seat 61: What's new on the site

News page on the Man in Seat 61 website

www.seat61.com

 

[popeter45]

I just realised seat61 is in fact reporting that there are plans to use the arrivals area for departures, as well as increasing the number of passport control lanes to increase capacity again:

The Man in Seat 61: What's new on the site

News page on the Man in Seat 61 website

www.seat61.com

without the need for facilities for the disney train makes sence to downscale arrivals or even do what the French do and remove then alltogether and exit via the upper level?

long term maybe a idea to remodel and remove than central corridor and unifi the arrivals/departures areas into one big departures area with security either further back in whats currently arrivals or even sideways to the area along the main concorse?

 

[AdamWW]

without the need for facilities for the disney train makes sence to downscale arrivals or even do what the French do and remove then alltogether and exit via the upper level

Can't see that happening. I don't know what all the people you have to walk past on the way out do but I presume that the government wants it that way.

 

[zwk500]

Can't see that happening. I don't know what all the people you have to walk past on the way out do but I presume that the government wants it that way.

To the best of my knowledge the juxtaposed borders only cover entry permission, customs declarations are a separate issue and the green/red lanes at St Pancras form part of that. The government would need to waive the requirement for customs declarations to change that.

 

[Sm5]

Of course it does.

If it takes 3 hours to check in 18 coaches of worth of people, then you need to start 3 hours before departure. If you run three 6 coach trains instead and it takes 1 hour to check people in, the first people need to be there 1 hour before their own departure.

You could of course use Ashford or Ebbsfleet to reduce the need to trapse to St Pancras.

I don't know. It will partly depend when Disneyland and Eurostar put on their website. The canny travellers will probably change at Lille - I certainly wouldn't want to try and get big bags and small children safely on to the RER at Gare du Nord when there is a straightforward alternative. However I can see Eurostar advising people to go all the way to Paris and use the much more frequent RER services.
However the Marne-le-Vallee services were only a handful a day, and holiday makers are unlikely to be travelling at peak times so I don't think it'll make much difference to the empty seats question.

I think they will just drive, or not bother at all myself.

 

[zwk500]

You could of course use Ashford or Ebbsfleet to reduce the need to trapse to St Pancras.

You can, but it costs a lot more to run the service then.

I think they will just drive, or not bother at all myself.

This will probably be the outcome

 

[AlbertBeale]

without the need for facilities for the disney train makes sence to downscale arrivals or even do what the French do and remove then alltogether and exit via the upper level?

long term maybe a idea to remodel and remove than central corridor and unifi the arrivals/departures areas into one big departures area with security either further back in whats currently arrivals or even sideways to the area along the main concorse?

I can't imagine the security area backing onto the main concourse is a starter - you'd have to have the queues for the ticket gates out there too; and that would leave really nowhere for anyone to get from the Met line Underground station etc to the NR trains. Not to mention they'd have to turn StP back from a shopping centre into a station again...

 

[jon0844]

I guess you could narrow the shopping aisle a bit and gain a bit of space, but that would restrict movement through the station - especially when a lot of people congregate near arrivals to meet friends and family.

You can get rid of a lot of people by informing them not to arrive 3 or 4 hours early as they might for a plane. There's no advantage arriving early as they won't want you clogging up the already limited room 'airside'.

That means early arrivals then take over the station and lead to long queues even when there's no disruption.

 

[D6130]

Eurostars running with empty seats? When we travelled from St Pancras to Paris on Thursday 16th March (ES 9032, 14 31 departure), the departure lounge was rammed and we were unable to upgrade to Standard Premier. Once on board, the Train Manager made several announcements to the effect that the train was fully-booked and asking passengers not to place their belongings on adjacent seats.

 

[AdamWW]

Eurostars running with empty seats? When we travelled from St Pancras to Paris on Thursday 16th March (ES 9032, 14 31 departure), the departure lounge was rammed and we were unable to upgrade to Standard Premier. Once on board, the Train Manager made several announcements to the effect that the train was fully-booked and asking passengers not to place their belongings on adjacent seats.

I'm pretty sure it was discussed above (if not, I read it elsewhere) that they are running some trains with empty seats. Particularly in the morning I think because delays at security then will have a knock-on effect for the rest of the day.

 

[zwk500]

Eurostars running with empty seats? When we travelled from St Pancras to Paris on Thursday 16th March (ES 9032, 14 31 departure), the departure lounge was rammed and we were unable to upgrade to Standard Premier. Once on board, the Train Manager made several announcements to the effect that the train was fully-booked and asking passengers not to place their belongings on adjacent seats.

I'm pretty sure it was discussed above (if not, I read it elsewhere) that they are running some trains with empty seats. Particularly in the morning I think because delays at security then will have a knock-on effect for the rest of the day.

Yes, it's the peak time departures which are closer together and so they are not selling all seats on the departures before about 0830-0900 to manage passenger throughput at St Pancras.

 

[m0ffy]

We traveled on 27/3 to Disney/MLV-Chessy and it was incredibly full. This was my first time on Eurostar since 2014 and the entire process feels a lot less slick than it did then, but I expect Brexit hasn’t helped.

 

[mrmartin]

So really the problem is not enough french passport staff, not a complete physical constraint, and it can be resolved. Hopefully another operator will be allowed to start as I think most of the issue tbh is Eurostar not really caring given the huge fares they are managing to charge atm.

I'm still convinced that a Lumo/Ouigo style operation from Stratford Intl would work.

 

[zwk500]

So really the problem is not enough french passport staff, not a complete physical constraint, and it can be resolved. Hopefully another operator will be allowed to start as I think most of the issue tbh is Eurostar not really caring given the huge fares they are managing to charge atm.

Eurostar are not helping themselves but fundamentally they are a private company and at least they're consistent in not serving the smaller french stations as well so it's not like they're penalising the UK.

I'm still convinced that a Lumo/Ouigo style operation from Stratford Intl would work.

Stratford is awkward though as you either need long periods of wrong-line working or running to St P and back anyway. Oh and the operator would need to pay (or convince somebody else to pay) for all the Security and Border control equipment at Stratford (and if they serve anywhere new on the continent, potentially there as well).

 

[mrmartin]

Eurostar are not helping themselves but fundamentally they are a private company and at least they're consistent in not serving the smaller french stations as well so it's not like they're penalising the UK.

Stratford is awkward though as you either need long periods of wrong-line working or running to St P and back anyway. Oh and the operator would need to pay (or convince somebody else to pay) for all the Security and Border control equipment at Stratford (and if they serve anywhere new on the continent, potentially there as well).

Yes but the constraint as far as I know isn't on track access, it's passenger terminal space? There should be room to run services to StP and back given southeastern for example have cut their timetable to 3tph (not sure for how long?) and eurostar is barely running 2tph. I find it hard to believe that 6tph (assuming SE went to back to 4tph?) is the absolute max that can be ran especially given the state of the art signalling? (I could be wrong though...)

Fair enough on equipment, but say a 4tpd service from Stratford international, you could have 4000 passengers a day, which is a lot more than many small airports, plus the security requirements aren't as strict.

 

[zwk500]

Yes but the constraint as far as I know isn't on track access, it's passenger terminal space? There should be room to run services to StP and back given southeastern for example have cut their timetable to 3tph (not sure for how long?) and eurostar is barely running 2tph. I find it hard to believe that 6tph (assuming SE went to back to 4tph?) is the absolute max that can be ran especially given the state of the art signalling? (I could be wrong though...)

It's still an additional operating cost, even if it is fairly easy to plan it in. IIRC HS1 charges access fees per minute, so you really don't want to waste 35 minutes or so just to shunt across platforms.

Fair enough on equipment, but say a 4tpd service from Stratford international, you could have 4000 passengers a day, which is a lot more than many small airports, plus the security requirements aren't as strict.

Small airports are often heavily subsidised and also only have border security for their own country, which costs a lot less than hosting somebody else's. If you're going for a low-cost fare, given it's something like £17/passenger for the channel tunnel transit, how much of a ticket would be allocated to repaying the debt used to finance the terminal fit-out?
The only way I could see Stratford being used for international trains is if there's a regional Eurostar service, and that's a very long way off for now.

 

[ABB125]

I find it hard to believe that 6tph (assuming SE went to 4tph?) is the absolute max that can be ran especially given the state of the art signalling? (I could be wrong though...)

There's definitely capacity to run more trains, but I've never been able to find out exactly. The difference in maximum speed between the Eurostars and SouthEastern trains doesn't help. I seem to think 10tph has been mentioned in the past.

For a more scientific answer, a quick look at RealTime Trains suggests that a Eurostar takes 25 minutes to go from St Pancras to Ashford West Jn, non-stop. A SouthEastern train, stopping at Stratford and Ebbsfleet takes 34 minutes to reach Ashford West Jn. So a 9 minute difference. If we assume a 3 minute headway on HS1 (which should definitely be possible), and take arbitrary departure times from St Pancras:

• xx00 Eurostar, arr. Ashford West xx25
• xx03 Eurostar, arr. xx28
• xx06 SE, arr. xx40
• xx09 SE, arr. xx46
• xx12 SE, arr. xx49
• xx15 SE, arr. xx52
• xx30 Eurostar, arr. xx55
• repeat the above

So, in theory, you could fit 4tph Eurostar and 8tph SouthEastern, as long as the Eurostars are flighted in pairs.
In practise, the xx15 I've listed probably couldn't run, because at Ashford West Jn the SouthEastern trains will be going slowly, as they are turning off HS1, but the Eurostars will be going full speed (not entirely sure what the linespeed is over the Ashford flyover, but probably at least 125mph. Therefore the xx30 Eurostar will probably catch up the xx15 SE and have to slow down.
You could probably also fit in one or two extra SE trains which leave HS1 at Ebbsfleet rather than going all the way to Ashford. Using the same approach as before:

• xx00 Eurostar, arr. Ebbsfleet xx13
• xx03 Eurostar, arr. xx16
• xx06 SE, arr. xx24 (to Ashford)
• xx09 SE, arr. xx27 (to Ashford)
• xx12 SE, arr. xx30 (to Ashford)
• xx15 SE, arr. xx33 (Ebbsfleet only)
• xx18 SE, arr. xx36 (Ebbsfleet only)
• xx21 SE, arr. xx39 (Ebbsfleet only)
• xx30 Eurostar, arr. xx43

This adds an additional 4tph of capacity for SouthEastern, as long as they only go as far as Ebbsfleet.

Of course, the fact that Eurostar paths have to match up with paths through the tunnel, and the fact that SouthEastern paths have to match with availability on the classic network, means that what I've just written in basically irrelevant!

 

[zwk500]

There's definitely capacity to run more trains, but I've never been able to find out exactly. The difference in maximum speed between the Eurostars and SouthEastern trains doesn't help. I seem to think 10tph has been mentioned in the past.

It's not the top speed (HS1 is 230kph at Stratford, only becomes 300kph around Ebbsfleet), but the acceleration from Stratford that is the issue. Theoretical headway is 3', so max capacity 20tph, but the moment you start stopping trains at Stratford you drain that down pretty badly. It's even worse if you refuse to loop the trains (as the business case is on journey time) as then you have to go back to Ebbsfleet for getting javelins out of the way.

 

[yorkie]

Just a reminder to please create a new thread if you wish to post speculatively, thanks

 

[StephenHunter]

It's still an additional operating cost, even if it is fairly easy to plan it in. IIRC HS1 charges access fees per minute, so you really don't want to waste 35 minutes or so just to shunt across platforms.

Small airports are often heavily subsidised and also only have border security for their own country, which costs a lot less than hosting somebody else's.

Southend Airport considerably expanded its operations in the 2010s - and then collapsed spectacularly when Covid came. Stratford International could end up that way if this wasn't done right.