Proposed new Channel Tunnel services discussion

[Chester1]

Has it occurred to you that, like St Pancras, these airports were never designed or resourced to process the volumes of non-EU arrivals they are now faced with?
My regular European airport, Faro, now receives on an August Saturday almost 60 flights from the UK in a single day, filled with passengers who are almost all UK passport holders, who all now need to be manually checked and stamped.

Prior to the UK’s departure from the EU I think there was perhaps one flight a day that has this kind of passenger mix (from Toronto) so the increase is substantial.

You yourself say “I expect a few minutes extra entering EU since brexit and that's been my experience, its fair enough to blame that on brexit” now multiply that by 180, then 60, and you see how a problem might result.

That's situational again. Berlin Brandenberg isn't flooded with British tourists or businesses travellers like Faro and Geneva. On paper Berlin Brandenberg should be able to handle post brexit changes well but it's a poor design and understaffed. I mentioned it because it was one of those moments when you realise how knee jerk some people's thinking is when faced with a problem. It was quite a reach to blame being locked in a corridor for half an hour with no explanation, in an airport with a bad reputation, on brexit instead of it being a badly run airport. It's predecessors were bad airports too. It made me realise that while brexit causes problems, it's a nice easy excuse for all border problems faced by Brits.

Back on topic, Amsterdam Central really should run fine with a facility that was designed for the passengers and checks it handles. The problems mentioned in post 558 are the responsibility of the Dutch government.

 

[MatthewHutton]

Quite possibly the track access charging regime favours infrequent long trains over frequent short ones (but I am only guessing], although this has always been the French way.

So the track access charging regime is bad.

The overwhelming flow of passengers is into Paris in the morning, and away from Paris in the evening [not many people going from Paris to Stuttgart for the day], so they wish to concentrate their capacity on those flows at those times of day

Except that in other countries (Britain, Germany, Japan, Taiwan) there is a similar and consistent long distance service all day. This includes the Tokaido Shinkansen with the world’s highest ridership.

I suspect that the three trains per day between Lyon and Toulouse have sufficient capacity for the amount of traffic on offer between the two points.

So you are saying the demand between Lyon and Toulouse is lower than on the West Highland line?

The TGV/Intercities operation will be paying the margin of 15.5% to its sole owner, the French Government, who will no doubt be offsetting this against the huge subsidies that are being paid to other parts of the French railways as a whole.

The French could undoubtedly reduce the subsidies to the rest of the French rail system if they actually tried running a decent level of service.

 

[signed]

So the track access charging regime is bad.

And likely illegal, if the legal challenges in Spain against ADIF are anything to go by

 

[MatthewHutton]

And likely illegal, if the legal challenges in Spain against ADIF are anything to go by

The other thing that is true is that even if additional peak service into Paris in the morning is desired that doesn’t clash with service for Britain or the Low Countries.

The first train from Amsterdam that leaves at 6am doesn’t get to Paris as it is until 9:30am, and the first train from London leaving at 6am doesn’t arrive until 9:20am.

Realistically any connecting service at Lille with a reasonable time to change wouldn’t be using the Paris Interconnection until basically 10am.

 

[NCT]

I don't buy the argument that Paris - Frankfurt/Stuttgart demand is directionally concentrated. Frankfurt and Stuttgart are metropolitan business centres and leisure travel hubs. Each of these two markets should be at least as strong as Paris - Geneva which operates a clockface 2-hourly all-day. The difference I suspect is that DB isn't as proactive and competent as SBB in handholding SNCF. And indeed what with the Rastatt Tunnel collapse, Riedbahn overhaul and the Stuttgart21 saga the infrastructure on the German side has been too unstable to contemplate a systematic timetable redesign. Unlike Switzerland, Germany doesn't have a sufficiently clear takt structure for French trains to plug into.

As for Toulouse - Lyon, to be fair, the natural demand for medium-sized cities 4 hours apart is going to be limited and there's precious little civilisation between Narbonne and Toulouse, so the basic two-hourly frequency offered by the Bordeaux - Marseille IC services is probably not unreasonable. Again, the problem isn't raw frequency, but the lack of a takt structured around Narbonne (though the Narbonne - Lyon direction frequency is problematic). Clearly 3 trains a day is far too restrictive in terms of times of travel and isn't good enough. For Lyon southwest if you try to just run direct trains to specific directions you will fail as the market isn't thick enough. You need to think in terms of timetabling so that passenger frequencies (through interchanges) are greater than raw train frequencies. It's a matter of how the same set of trains can serve both Lyon - Toulouse and Lyon - Barcelona passengers with consistent journey times and frequencies throughout the day.

 

[nwales58]

I don't think it helps that a section of British travellers are very keen to blame brexit rather than their host country. This happened when I arrived at Berlin Brandenberg. It took half an hour for any staff to even turn up....

Done inbound at BER twice in the past 6 weeks, once evening once middle of day. 5-8 minutes from arriving at immigration to out the other side. Outbound to non-Schengen was even shorter each time (but outbound security was a disaster).

This difficulty with everyone's experiences is that you see a small number events and you can document the worst (e.g. mine is nearly passing out with low sugar in the 45 minute queue on the apron to get into immigration at Liverpool, 2nd worse was at Delhi). Manchester T2 managed to strand arriving people on an airbridge recently as the handlers hadn't realised the aircraft had arrived.

Back on St Pancras, any border facililty can be made to work if you fund it properly, for operations as well as capital. In my former life in project evaluation, many poorer countries start from assuming that their ports and airports are inadequate and new ones are nedeed. When you look at demand and get good operational people involved with enough day-to-day budget you can generally get a lot more out of the existing infrastructure until you hit real constraints.

We know the only serious constraint at St Pancras currently is the commercial objectives, maximise retail rents. Change the objective (renegotiate LSPHSwhatever it's now called's long term lease) to running an efficient transport interchange.

Unfortunately we have grown into this bizarre way of thinking about transport interchanges in britain becoming normal because 30-40 years ago everything (outside London rail terminals at peak), including most airport terminals, was well under capacity. It was a no-brainer to use space for secondary revenue, it had no operational impact. We then assumed the secondary revenue was essential even when passengers started to reach the capacity of the infrastructure. Tail now wags the dog, but most don't realise it.

 

[NCT]

Back on St Pancras, any border facililty can be made to work if you fund it properly, for operations as well as capital. In my former life in project evaluation, many poorer countries start from assuming that their ports and airports are inadequate and new ones are nedeed. When you look at demand and get good operational people involved with enough day-to-day budget you can generally get a lot more out of the existing infrastructure until you hit real constraints.

Who funds it? It boils down to either taxpayer or fare payer. Whichever way you try to rationalise it it's a Brexit imposed extra cost on society.

 

[MatthewHutton]

and there's precious little civilisation between Narbonne and Toulouse

Apart from Carcassonne which is also a tourist destination.

I mean yeah it’s not got the largest ever places on it. But e.g Cardiff and Manchester which takes 3 hours the places in between aren’t exactly massive in general and that service is hourly.

I mean yeah Shrewsbury and Hereford are a little larger than Carcassonne but not overwhelmingly and they are less touristy.

And Narbonne-Barcelona is another 4 trains a day like the West Highland line service.

 

[RT4038]

So the track access charging regime is bad.

Possibly for achieving the type of train service you would like to see, but not necessarily for the needs of France?

Except that in other countries (Britain, Germany, Japan, Taiwan) there is a similar and consistent long distance service all day. This includes the Tokaido Shinkansen with the world’s highest ridership.

This is France we are talking about, which has a different demographic, population density, geography and therefore demand profile than any of the countries you mention. I don't see the relevance in trying to compare the French railway system with any of those countries.

So you are saying the demand between Lyon and Toulouse is lower than on the West Highland line?

I think it would be closer (although not perfect) to be comparing the Marseilles-Gap-Briancon line with the West Highland line. Glasgow is a much larger place than Fort William (for commercial and leisure activities not available in Fort William), and is a major interchange to services further afield. Lyon and Toulouse are of a similar size and would not interact with each other for transport demand in the same way. I would think that the seating capacity of the Lyon-Toulouse trains that do run would be about double that of the current Glasgow-Fort William trains. As far as I know, there is no issue of trains between Lyon and Toulouse being routinely sold out, which would seem to indicate that the current capacity is sufficient for demand?

The other thing that is true is that even if additional peak service into Paris in the morning is desired that doesn’t clash with service for Britain or the Low Countries.

The first train from Amsterdam that leaves at 6am doesn’t get to Paris as it is until 9:30am, and the first train from London leaving at 6am doesn’t arrive until 9:20am.

Realistically any connecting service at Lille with a reasonable time to change wouldn’t be using the Paris Interconnection until basically 10am.

I do not think it is line capacity that is necessarily the issue, it is that the train peak is bringing passengers from the provinces into Paris up to about 11am (bearing in mind the long distances and (for political reasons) the diverse number of destinations), and the peak of return demand from about 4pm onwards. I would think this leaves a lot of trains in Paris with (relatively) short amounts of spare time, which limits the possibility of trips in the middle of the day. Most of their trains are used coping with this peak flow, with a relatively thin service contra flow (which copes with the lesser demand). Couple that with the extra peaks for Friday/Sunday, so the number of trains in for maintenance/servicing are concentrated to the middle of the week, and you can see how they get their uneven timetables. Coping with these peaks and running clock face interval timetables all day is going to use more trains and more staff with uncertain additional revenue to pay for it (assuming the funding is available to them anyway).
Any extra services to Lille (unless they come from Paris) via the Interconnection are most likely to take extra trains and staff.

Analyse their timetables and train diagrams, and analyse their demand profile; it can then seen why the timetables are like they are. Clock face services would mean owning more trains to run services at times of lower demand (with the financial implications that go with that) and/or trying to force passengers who wish to leave Paris at (e.g.) 5pm to leave at 11am instead. The size of France, coupled with the size and economic position of Paris, results in the service which they have. Could it be changed? Yes, but at quite some expense which they presumably do not want to incur.

I don't buy the argument that Paris - Frankfurt/Stuttgart demand is directionally concentrated. Frankfurt and Stuttgart are metropolitan business centres and leisure travel hubs. Each of these two markets should be at least as strong as Paris - Geneva which operates a clockface 2-hourly all-day. The difference I suspect is that DB isn't as proactive and competent as SBB in handholding SNCF. And indeed what with the Rastatt Tunnel collapse, Riedbahn overhaul and the Stuttgart21 saga the infrastructure on the German side has been too unstable to contemplate a systematic timetable redesign. Unlike Switzerland, Germany doesn't have a sufficiently clear takt structure for French trains to plug into.

Paris is much larger than Frankfurt or Stuttgart, and they both lie in Germany compared to France. Neither are really leisure travel hubs [who goes to Frankfurt or Suttgart or their environs for their holiday, or even a 'city break'?] in the same way as Geneva would be to the rest of Switzerland, which is also much closer culturally to France (French speaking part of Switzerland).

As for Toulouse - Lyon, to be fair, the natural demand for medium-sized cities 4 hours apart is going to be limited and there's precious little civilisation between Narbonne and Toulouse, so the basic two-hourly frequency offered by the Bordeaux - Marseille IC services is probably not unreasonable. Again, the problem isn't raw frequency, but the lack of a takt structured around Narbonne (though the Narbonne - Lyon direction frequency is problematic). Clearly 3 trains a day is far too restrictive in terms of times of travel and isn't good enough. For Lyon southwest if you try to just run direct trains to specific directions you will fail as the market isn't thick enough. You need to think in terms of timetabling so that passenger frequencies (through interchanges) are greater than raw train frequencies. It's a matter of how the same set of trains can serve both Lyon - Toulouse and Lyon - Barcelona passengers with consistent journey times and frequencies throughout the day.

Quite.

 

[NCT]

Apart from Carcassonne which is also a tourist destination.

I mean yeah it’s not got the largest ever places on it. But e.g Cardiff and Manchester which takes 3 hours the places in between aren’t exactly massive in general and that service is hourly.

I mean yeah Shrewsbury and Hereford are a little larger than Carcassonne but not overwhelmingly and they are less touristy.

And Narbonne-Barcelona is another 4 trains a day like the West Highland line service.

Toulouse - Narbonne does have an hourly TER on top of the two-hourly IC plus the occasional Lyon TGV, so the corridor frequency is pretty much on par with Newport - Shrewsbury, so I think the underlying frequency isn't the problem.

Barcelona - Narbonne is a different story entirely. You've got the meeting of French and Spanish railway cultures which is just a car crash. That said, while works around Barcelona Sagrera are happening capacity towards Barcelona is severely restricted (Sants platform capacity aside it's just a single line through the Sagrera construction site at the moment).

 

[Chester1]

Done inbound at BER twice in the past 6 weeks, once evening once middle of day. 5-8 minutes from arriving at immigration to out the other side. Outbound to non-Schengen was even shorter each time (but outbound security was a disaster).

This difficulty with everyone's experiences is that you see a small number events and you can document the worst (e.g. mine is nearly passing out with low sugar in the 45 minute queue on the apron to get into immigration at Liverpool, 2nd worse was at Delhi). Manchester T2 managed to strand arriving people on an airbridge recently as the handlers hadn't realised the aircraft had arrived.

Back on St Pancras, any border facililty can be made to work if you fund it properly, for operations as well as capital. In my former life in project evaluation, many poorer countries start from assuming that their ports and airports are inadequate and new ones are nedeed. When you look at demand and get good operational people involved with enough day-to-day budget you can generally get a lot more out of the existing infrastructure until you hit real constraints.

We know the only serious constraint at St Pancras currently is the commercial objectives, maximise retail rents. Change the objective (renegotiate LSPHSwhatever it's now called's long term lease) to running an efficient transport interchange.

Unfortunately we have grown into this bizarre way of thinking about transport interchanges in britain becoming normal because 30-40 years ago everything (outside London rail terminals at peak), including most airport terminals, was well under capacity. It was a no-brainer to use space for secondary revenue, it had no operational impact. We then assumed the secondary revenue was essential even when passengers started to reach the capacity of the infrastructure. Tail now wags the dog, but most don't realise it.

I have never passed through Tegel, Schoenefeld or Brandenberg that fast. I am probably into double figure visits to Berlin in last 7 or 8 years (spread before and after Brexit).

Who funds it? It boils down to either taxpayer or fare payer. Whichever way you try to rationalise it it's a Brexit imposed extra cost on society.

Costs to society can be measured in different ways. The EU Commission and UK government clearly see value in making it a bit harder for each other's criminals to travel. There is no real interest on either side in doing anything about border controls.

There was a Guardian article last week that described being able to take a train from London to Marseille as having felt like the height of civilisation. It reminded me of the "anywheres" and "somewheres" description of the divide in our society. For "anywheres" anything that provides even the smallest hindrance to their ability to lead an international lifestyle is unacceptable and backward.

If people really want to change border controls to boost Eurostar the biggest realistic change would be a reciprocal visa waiver for non Citizen residents of UK and Schengen. We didn't have one during our EU membership and there is no interest in one now, even amongst politicians who moan about UK ETA and ETIAS. I'd bet the number of Londoners who need a visa to go to Paris is in the high hundreds of thousands. There is an unfortunate tendency amongst poorer countries to ban dual citizenships so there are British residents who have been here for decades who don't have visa free travel to EU because it would mean forfiting their citizenship of birth. There will be a significant number of Parisians who need a visa to visit the UK. The nuisance caused by needing to apply for a visa is levels of magnitude worse than filling in an ETA form. Opening up short notice trips to this pool of people (with above average incomes) would be bigger than any brexit related hassle.

 

[NCT]

...

This is France we are talking about, which has a different demographic, population density, geography and therefore demand profile than any of the countries you mention. I don't see the relevance in trying to compare the French railway system with any of those countries.

...


I do not think it is line capacity that is necessarily the issue, it is that the train peak is bringing passengers from the provinces into Paris up to about 11am (bearing in mind the long distances and (for political reasons) the diverse number of destinations), and the peak of return demand from about 4pm onwards. I would think this leaves a lot of trains in Paris with (relatively) short amounts of spare time, which limits the possibility of trips in the middle of the day. Most of their trains are used coping with this peak flow, with a relatively thin service contra flow (which copes with the lesser demand). Couple that with the extra peaks for Friday/Sunday, so the number of trains in for maintenance/servicing are concentrated to the middle of the week, and you can see how they get their uneven timetables. Coping with these peaks and running clock face interval timetables all day is going to use more trains and more staff with uncertain additional revenue to pay for it (assuming the funding is available to them anyway).
Any extra services to Lille (unless they come from Paris) via the Interconnection are most likely to take extra trains and staff.

Analyse their timetables and train diagrams, and analyse their demand profile; it can then seen why the timetables are like they are. Clock face services would mean owning more trains to run services at times of lower demand (with the financial implications that go with that) and/or trying to force passengers who wish to leave Paris at (e.g.) 5pm to leave at 11am instead. The size of France, coupled with the size and economic position of Paris, results in the service which they have. Could it be changed? Yes, but at quite some expense which they presumably do not want to incur.

Paris is much larger than Frankfurt or Stuttgart, and they both lie in Germany compared to France. Neither are really leisure travel hubs [who goes to Frankfurt or Suttgart or their environs for their holiday, or even a 'city break'?] in the same way as Geneva would be to the rest of Switzerland, which is also much closer culturally to France (French speaking part of Switzerland).

I think there is too much French exceptionalism doing the talking here.

The lack of clockface scheduling, prevalence of compulsory reservation and lack of flexible fares all add to generalised journey times and the combined effect is substantial. Those things depress demand and yield. You've got the silly situation where Bordeaux - Toulouse is combined hourly at near identical journey times but IC, TGV and Ouigo services all have separate ticket policies so passengers don't get the full benefit of the timetable.

I'd wager that if SNCF offered Anytime 'Any Reasonable Route' tickets charged at a premium it would see an improvement in both volume and yield on their TGV services to the extent that peak trains cover rolling stock depreciation costs, and then it would be able to afford to run clock-face off-peak services with enough revenue from Off Peak tickets to cover their marginal costs. This is while continuing with their more restrictive 'Advance' fares of course, but a certain % of existing passengers would trade up. Some incremental service uplift should happen from the existing 15% profit margin (it looks like competition will be doing that uplift by eroding SNCF's monopolistic profits anyway).

As for the Paris - Frankfurt/Stuttgart Munich route, the long-term timetable is already more balanced and more frequent than you make the demand pattern out to be. Paris - Frankfurt is already nearly two-hourly in both directions (a small handful of services run via Saarbrucken). Again the problem is less raw frequency and more the lack of a 'takt' (for example, run Lyon - Frankfurt in the hours when the Paris - Frankfurt goes via Saarbrucken). The economics of the Stuttgart route should improve once the German enhancement works are finally complete, as Paris - Munich should then be within 5 hours, and Munich is certainly a leisure destination hub and gateway.

 

[rvdborgt]

Barcelona - Narbonne is a different story entirely. You've got the meeting of French and Spanish railway cultures which is just a car crash.

Renfe and SNCF both decide what their passengers want...

 

[NCT]

Renfe and SNCF both decide what their passengers want...

And Renfe is discovering other operators serve what their passengers want rather better ...

 

[HSTEd]

I recently had the displeasure of travelling from Cologne to Brussels with a colleague on prebooked tickets - I was ona n interrail pass.

I had to wait an hour because the Thalys train was compulsory reservation and take the ICE [ICE 18] behind it.
The interrail quota for reservations is very small and rather expensive, at the end of the day.

 

[MatthewHutton]

I do not think it is line capacity that is necessarily the issue, it is that the train peak is bringing passengers from the provinces into Paris up to about 11am (bearing in mind the long distances and (for political reasons) the diverse number of destinations), and the peak of return demand from about 4pm onwards. I would think this leaves a lot of trains in Paris with (relatively) short amounts of spare time, which limits the possibility of trips in the middle of the day.

The peak of longer distance travel would probably involve leaving London between 8am and 12 noon - which would hit Paris in the midday lull.

Possibly for achieving the type of train service you would like to see, but not necessarily for the needs of France?

Given the French have lower long distance ridership than Britain and a similar population and the massive investment in TGV lines I really don’t think you can say that they are “serving the needs of the French”

think it would be closer (although not perfect) to be comparing the Marseilles-Gap-Briancon line with the West Highland line. Glasgow is a much larger place than Fort William (for commercial and leisure activities not available in Fort William), and is a major interchange to services further afield. Lyon and Toulouse are of a similar size and would not interact with each other for transport demand in the same way. I would think that the seating capacity of the Lyon-Toulouse trains that do run would be about double that of the current Glasgow-Fort William trains. As far as I know, there is no issue of trains between Lyon and Toulouse being routinely sold out, which would seem to indicate that the current capacity is sufficient for demand?

People do travel between big cities all the time though - and in Britain or Germany the train services between such cities are more frequent.

 

[NCT]

I recently had the displeasure of travelling from Cologne to Brussels with a colleague on prebooked tickets - I was ona n interrail pass.

I had to wait an hour because the Thalys train was compulsory reservation and take the ICE [ICE 18] behind it.
The interrail quota for reservations is very small and rather expensive, at the end of the day.

Nothing highlights Eurostar's aggressive profit maximising ways than the contrast between Eurostar and DB on the Brussels - Cologne route.

Ironically, London - Brussels Eurostars connect into the DB ICEs (even hour xx05 arrival into Brussels, xx25 ICE departure towards Cologne and Frankfurt). This works for Interrailers but I'm not sure it works particularly well for those on ordinary tickets. The Eurostar website offers London - Cologne through tickets but only Eurostar connections with 1h20m connections, the exceptions being when the handful of London - Amsterdam runs do connect well into the Eurostar Reds towards Cologne.

Alas clearly even with competition the hourly Brussels - Cologne offering is still suppressing demand. Apparently the voltage change between Liege and Aachen is such that only single units can run. The infrastructure on the German side is anything but generous (the Cologne bottleneck and the non-HS infrastructure through Aachen to Duren) so I suspect running a half-hourly service would be tricky at best.

 

[rvdborgt]

Apparently the voltage change between Liege and Aachen is such that only single units can run.

Correct, but this is being changed.

 

[NCT]

Paris is much larger than Frankfurt or Stuttgart, and they both lie in Germany compared to France. Neither are really leisure travel hubs [who goes to Frankfurt or Suttgart or their environs for their holiday, or even a 'city break'?] in the same way as Geneva would be to the rest of Switzerland, which is also much closer culturally to France (French speaking part of Switzerland).

Just to elaborate further, Paris - Basel - Zurich is 2-hourly too (with one 3-hour interval in each direction which I'll gloss over), so the French speaking point doesn't stand.

https://assets.ctfassets.net/scbs508bajse/55FqSU1scLy5OcgIKTo4QH/c5cd6c048b5d10d2a0d7876f8f17a34a/Netzgrafik_3._Entwurf_Fernverkehr.pdf

The Deutschland Takt clearly envisages an hourly path between Strasbourg and Karlsruhe, with trains alternating towards Munich and Frankfurt. In hours the Strasbourg path goes to Frankfurt there's a connection at Karlsruhe towards Munich, and vice versa.

This only represents a modest incremental uplift from existing service levels. Once the relevant infrastructure on the German side is complete next year it's just up to the French side to standardise their train paths. On the German side the 2-hour Karlsruhe - Munich and hourly Basel - Mannheim already run, and should hopefully be in the 'correct part of the hour' post Stuttgart21 and Rastatt tunnel.

 

[Trainbike46]

Back on topic, Amsterdam Central really should run fine with a facility that was designed for the passengers and checks it handles. The problems mentioned in post 558 are the responsibility of the Dutch government.

The problem in Amsterdam is that the border area was expanded significantly (from ~275 passengers per train to ~600 passengers per train), but that the government is unwilling to increase the number of border officials at that station. Eurostar and NS blame the Dutch government for that, and rightfully so in my view. The Dutch government, in its reaction, claimed this was Eurostar's, NS's (operator for Eurostar within the Netherlands), and Prorail's (infrastructure operator, Dutch equivalent of Network Rail) fault for increasing the infrastructure capacity. There is also apparently a conflict between Eurostar and the Dutch government around the costs of border force, which is covered by the government at Schiphol airport, but covered by Eurostar at Amsterdam Centraal. Source here in Dutch.

Eurostar says this will be resolved when ePassport gates are installed after the end of summer.

On the French railway network, I think it would not be controversial to say that France runs relatively little services for the amount of infrastructure that exists, though some infrastructure is undeniably busy, there are a lot of lines with very little service. I'd generally agree with @NCT that, as far as I can tell as an outsider, it should be possible to offer a much better service on the same infrastructure, and French railway ticketing is definitely worse than ticketing in either the UK or Germany.

On the 50 new trains eurostar is apparently ordering (has anyone seen any more recent updates), by my count it is not actually that big a fleet expansion, assuming the new trains will be 200m.

It will be replacing all ex-thalys sets (26 200m sets) and the e300s (11 400m or 22 200m-equivalent sets), so they are replacing 48 sets with 50 sets, which is barely an increase at all. So I do wonder how they are going to achieve that growth they are apparently planning. Maybe the passenger growth will in fact be achieved by their new competitors?

 

[The Ham]

On the French railway network, I think it would not be controversial to say that France runs relatively little services for the amount of infrastructure that exists, though some infrastructure is undeniably busy, there are a lot of lines with very little service. I'd generally agree with @NCT that, as far as I can tell as an outsider, it should be possible to offer a much better service on the same infrastructure, and French railway ticketing is definitely worse than ticketing in either the UK or Germany.

The French TGV network carries 122 million passengers a year, I noticed this because it's not that much more than what HS2 services (so everything, not just those expected to run on the HS2 infrastructure) were expecting to carry in a year, which is 100 million passengers - even though the extent of the HS2 services is far smaller than the French TGV network.

 

[MatthewHutton]

The French TGV network carries 122 million passengers a year, I noticed this because it's not that much more than what HS2 services (so everything, not just those expected to run on the HS2 infrastructure) were expecting to carry in a year, which is 100 million passengers - even though the extent of the HS2 services is far smaller than the French TGV network.

The British did 144 million long distance passengers in the last calendar year.

And thats with our long distance London approaches sharing track with longer distance suburban services, a limit of 11 car trains not 16 and with weaker ridership in the capital region in general meaning less potential long distance passengers from close to but outside the capital.

And yes France is bigger - but the TGV is also faster - averaging maybe 150mph in service vs maybe 80-90mph in Britain for our fastest express services.

Plus the British network has many more capacity constraints. The French are probably legitimately constrained on the LGV Sud Est but not really elsewhere as much.

 

[AlastairFraser]

The problem in Amsterdam is that the border area was expanded significantly (from ~275 passengers per train to ~600 passengers per train), but that the government is unwilling to increase the number of border officials at that station. Eurostar and NS blame the Dutch government for that, and rightfully so in my view. The Dutch government, in its reaction, claimed this was Eurostar's, NS's (operator for Eurostar within the Netherlands), and Prorail's (infrastructure operator, Dutch equivalent of Network Rail) fault for increasing the infrastructure capacity. There is also apparently a conflict between Eurostar and the Dutch government around the costs of border force, which is covered by the government at Schiphol airport, but covered by Eurostar at Amsterdam Centraal. Source here in Dutch.

Would it not be possible for Eurostar to sell the extra capacity as cheaper advances, and specify that those passengers have to arrive several hours beforehand for processing (presuming there's capacity in the waiting rooms after the border for them to wait in)?
I know it's insane, but it may be a good temporary solution.

 

[Trainbike46]

Would it not be possible for Eurostar to sell the extra capacity as cheaper advances, and specify that those passengers have to arrive several hours beforehand for processing (presuming there's capacity in the waiting rooms after the border for them to wait in)?
I know it's insane, but it may be a good temporary solution.

That capacity exists. I guess it would be possible if the border officials arrive in sufficient time to allow that?

 

[Sir Felix Pole]

TGVs spend an awful lot of time off the LGV network, partly because it is not as developed as Spain, but also for 'political' reasons so that through services are maintained to and from Paris. It is frankly ridiculous that tiny communities like St Die and Remiremont in Eastern France have token TGVs and all the inefficient working that entails. The LGV Atlantique timetable is also fearsomely complex so that the stations on the old main can still be served, such as Libourne and Chatellerault.

SNCF have tried to trim these marginal services to howls of protest, but as the completion hots up I suspect there will be a retreat to operating more frequent services on the core routes only - much as Eurostar has done. Even TGV services to sizeable places like Valenciennes, Douai, Lens and Bethune in the north have been proposed for withdrawal - but squashed for now.

 

[RT4038]

Just to elaborate further, Paris - Basel - Zurich is 2-hourly too (with one 3-hour interval in each direction which I'll gloss over), so the French speaking point doesn't stand.

8 trains per day to Geneva (some extended to Lausanne) plus 3 trains per day to Lausanne not operating via Geneva. 11 trains per day to the French speaking part of Switzerland. 6 trains per day Paris-Basle-Zurich. So the French part gets nearly double that of the German speaking part.

The peak of longer distance travel would probably involve leaving London between 8am and 12 noon - which would hit Paris in the midday lull.

I am really unsure what the point of this statement is - presumably the peak of long distance travel from London is between 8am and 12 noon, which is arriving in Paris between 11h30 and 15h30. Looking at the French railway timetables, there are not many (any?) routes from Paris say between [after a suitable connecting and transfer time] offering no departures between 12h30 and 18h00. So pretty much all the likely passenger journeys can be made already.

If you are referring to operating extra trains from London to points south, east or west of Paris [ which would not be serving central Paris], then these would require extra trains in the fleet. Ignoring the issues of immigration and security for the meantime [which would require through passengers to change at Lille, whether onto a different (shuttley) train or the same train], these trains would likely only get in one trip per day, which I would suggest would be uneconomic - the fares to cover the year round costs would be too high to be sufficiently competitive with air, considering the lengthy journey time and inconvenience at Lille*.

*Even though that inconvenience is little more onerous than doing these formalities at an airport before departure, I doubt it would be seen that way by the majority of potential passengers.

People do travel between big cities all the time though - and in Britain or Germany the train services between such cities are more frequent.

Well yes, and SNCF is providing considerable capacity on the three trains it does run. Is there any evidence to suggest that this capacity is routinely insufficient? The UK doesn't provide through service from Liverpool to Cardiff or Newcastle to Norwich or Bristol to Glasgow etc. However, talking about Lyon to Toulouse is a little way off the OP - 'Getlink aiming to double the number of destinations from London in ten years'

​

On the French railway network, I think it would not be controversial to say that France runs relatively little services for the amount of infrastructure that exists, though some infrastructure is undeniably busy, there are a lot of lines with very little service. I'd generally agree with @NCT that, as far as I can tell as an outsider, it should be possible to offer a much better service on the same infrastructure, and French railway ticketing is definitely worse than ticketing in either the UK or Germany.

They could offer a much better service on the same infrastructure I am sure, but whether the passenger traffic is there, the revenue would exceed the costs is another question, and anyone willing to take the risk is another matter. Open access will no doubt bring competition, but this will likely only be successful on the main routes to and from Paris only, and will possibly result in less service elsewhere due to the loss of the current cross subsidisation.

TGVs spend an awful lot of time off the LGV network, partly because it is not as developed as Spain, but also for 'political' reasons so that through services are maintained to and from Paris. It is frankly ridiculous that tiny communities like St Die and Remiremont in Eastern France have token TGVs and all the inefficient working that entails. The LGV Atlantique timetable is also fearsomely complex so that the stations on the old main can still be served, such as Libourne and Chatellerault.

SNCF have tried to trim these marginal services to howls of protest, but as the completion hots up I suspect there will be a retreat to operating more frequent services on the core routes only - much as Eurostar has done. Even TGV services to sizeable places like Valenciennes, Douai, Lens and Bethune in the north have been proposed for withdrawal - but squashed for now.

Exactly this. TGV to Rang de Fliers-Verton-Berck. Line electrified specifically for it. It is dangerous to assume that SNCF management are necessarily entirely at 'fault' - no doubt they have financial limitations, an inheritance and plenty of politics to deal with.

 

[AlastairFraser]

That capacity exists. I guess it would be possible if the border officials arrive in sufficient time to allow that?

I'd imagine they would be stationed there for several hours beforehand, since E* tells people that you should leave hours before train departure anyway

 

[MatthewHutton]

8 trains per day to Geneva (some extended to Lausanne) plus 3 trains per day to Lausanne not operating via Geneva. 11 trains per day to the French speaking part of Switzerland. 6 trains per day Paris-Basle-Zurich. So the French part gets nearly double that of the German speaking part.


I am really unsure what the point of this statement is - presumably the peak of long distance travel from London is between 8am and 12 noon, which is arriving in Paris between 11h30 and 15h30. Looking at the French railway timetables, there are not many (any?) routes from Paris say between [after a suitable connecting and transfer time] offering no departures between 12h30 and 18h00. So pretty much all the likely passenger journeys can be made already.

If you are referring to operating extra trains from London to points south, east or west of Paris [ which would not be serving central Paris], then these would require extra trains in the fleet. Ignoring the issues of immigration and security for the meantime [which would require through passengers to change at Lille, whether onto a different (shuttley) train or the same train], these trains would likely only get in one trip per day, which I would suggest would be uneconomic - the fares to cover the year round costs would be too high to be sufficiently competitive with air, considering the lengthy journey time and inconvenience at Lille*.

*Even though that inconvenience is little more onerous than doing these formalities at an airport before departure, I doubt it would be seen that way by the majority of potential passengers.


Well yes, and SNCF is providing considerable capacity on the three trains it does run. Is there any evidence to suggest that this capacity is routinely insufficient? The UK doesn't provide through service from Liverpool to Cardiff or Newcastle to Norwich or Bristol to Glasgow etc. However, talking about Lyon to Toulouse is a little way off the OP - 'Getlink aiming to double the number of destinations from London in ten years'

​

They could offer a much better service on the same infrastructure I am sure, but whether the passenger traffic is there, the revenue would exceed the costs is another question, and anyone willing to take the risk is another matter. Open access will no doubt bring competition, but this will likely only be successful on the main routes to and from Paris only, and will possibly result in less service elsewhere due to the loss of the current cross subsidisation.


Exactly this. TGV to Rang de Fliers-Verton-Berck. Line electrified specifically for it. It is dangerous to assume that SNCF management are necessarily entirely at 'fault' - no doubt they have financial limitations, an inheritance and plenty of politics to deal with.

Hull trains covers all of its costs and makes a commercial profit with 200 passengers a train, an average speed of 80mph and an average fare of £30 each way.

You certainly cannot really claim that a TGV couldn’t make a reasonable operating profit with 200 passengers a train and realistically I would say it was difficult to argue they couldn’t make an operating profit with 100 passengers a train given the higher speeds.

 

[RT4038]

Would it not be possible for Eurostar to sell the extra capacity as cheaper advances, and specify that those passengers have to arrive several hours beforehand for processing (presuming there's capacity in the waiting rooms after the border for them to wait in)?
I know it's insane, but it may be a good temporary solution.

The questions would be - how many of the full fare passengers would transfer to the cheaper fare, thereby reducing E* revenue, and (b) would the additional passengers so attracted outweigh this, and any additional costs such as security that may be incurred? Would expecting passengers to arrive 3 or 4 hours before departure, without any refreshment facilities except machines in the waiting room, be too much reputational risk? Is this a risk E* would want to take?

 

[MatthewHutton]

TGVs spend an awful lot of time off the LGV network, partly because it is not as developed as Spain, but also for 'political' reasons so that through services are maintained to and from Paris. It is frankly ridiculous that tiny communities like St Die and Remiremont in Eastern France have token TGVs and all the inefficient working that entails. The LGV Atlantique timetable is also fearsomely complex so that the stations on the old main can still be served, such as Libourne and Chatellerault

So run a 4 car or even 2 car EMU to those places that splits multiple ways. You’d probably get more ridership than today with 1tp2h and a 10 minute delay to couple the trains together.

Or run an hourly non TGV EMU that has a timed connection with an hourly TGV somewhere bigger.