Eurostar - snapshot of current services

[whole diary]

[Timmer]

From Rail Magazine

Eurostar services will not call at either Ebbsfleet or Ashford International station during 2023, the cross-channel operator has confirmed.

Both HS1^▸ (High Speed line 1 - St Pancras to Channel Tunnel) stations were shut at the beginning of the Coronavirus pandemic, with the company announcing last year that they would not reopen until 2023 at the earliest.

A Eurostar spokesman blamed “an uncertain and fragile environment” for the continued closure, citing COVID-19 and Brexit as heavily influencing the latest decision.

I wonder if Eurostar will ever call at Ebbsfleet or Ashford again - are Covid and Brexit convenient reasons given for them to give up something that from a business viewpoint had become a bit of an unprofitable nuisance to them?

BBC^» (British Broadcasting Corporation - home page) reported the other day that it may not be until 2025:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-kent-62647504

Eurostar has announced its services may not stop in Kent again until 2025.
The company's trains have not called at Ashford or Ebbsfleet since March 2020, due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The operator said it understood this would be disappointing for local communities.
Ashford Borough Council's leader described the decision as a "real challenge" for the community and said he would continue to push for services to be resumed.

Eurostar confirmed services carrying passengers between London St Pancras and Europe via the Channel Tunnel would not stop at the two Kent stations during 2023.

It added it would not be able to "make any commitment for another two to three years".
Eurostar cited financial factors and the post-Brexit border situation, with the EU^» (European Union - about)'s entry/exit system due to be in place by the end of May 2023 expected to add "further complexity".
Continues…

[TaplowGreen]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-62728618.amp

Stopping services to Disneyland Paris too.

[IndustryInsider]

Such are the perils of a fully private operation and the complications of Brexit.

[Electric train]

There are 2 a couple of possible reasons for not stopping at Ebbsfleet and Ashford, UK^▸ (United Kingdom) Boarder Force may have redeployed there staff to other duties also the France may have reduced its staff levels added to the fact that passenger levels at both these stations is not high at the best of times.

From Rail Magazine

Eurostar services will not call at either Ebbsfleet or Ashford International station during 2023, the cross-channel operator has confirmed.

Both HS1^▸ (High Speed line 1 - St Pancras to Channel Tunnel) stations were shut at the beginning of the Coronavirus pandemic, with the company announcing last year that they would not reopen until 2023 at the earliest.

A Eurostar spokesman blamed “an uncertain and fragile environment” for the continued closure, citing COVID-19 and Brexit as heavily influencing the latest decision.

I wonder if Eurostar will ever call at Ebbsfleet or Ashford again - are Covid and Brexit convenient reasons given for them to give up something that from a business viewpoint had become a bit of an unprofitable nuisance to them?

There will be 'political' pressure from KCC and Ashford DC^▸ (Direct Current) to have at Eurostar services stop at Ashford, however as II says

Such are the perils of a fully private operation and the complications of Brexit.

The UK Government refused to assist Eurostar or Eurotunnel during the lockdowns because they were not UK based companies, both of them were on their knees almost on the point of total collapse.   Eurostar will not be receptive to political pressure from the UK Government or local authorities.

Eurostar has to pay all the security, Border Force etc costs at all 3 UK stations, the UK Government to not provide any finance towards these costs.  Basically, if Eurostar do not believe there is sufficient revenue at Ashford and Ebbsfleet then it makes no business sense to use the stations.

Euro Disney again may be down to UK Boarder control costs at Euro Disney.

The UK Boarder Control costs is just not UK Boarder Force staff but is also Frontex costs.

I suspect the Ski specials may be next for the chop!

[Bmblbzzz]

Eurostar has to pay all the security, Border Force etc costs at all 3 UK^▸ (United Kingdom) stations, the UK Government to not provide any finance towards these costs.

Surprised to learn this. Do similar arrangements apply at ferry and air ports?

[jamestheredengine]

Such are the perils of a fully private operation and the complications of Brexit.

So fully private that Eurostar is 55% owned by the French state railway, 30% by the Quebec civil service pension scheme, 5% by the Belgian state railway, and only 10% by an American asset management fund. Sounds 90% foreign public sector to me. Not really sure why we're continuing to allow their trains between Ashford International and London St Pancras really – proposing suspending their trackage rights would certainly be an interesting version of playing hard ball with intransigent Gallic bureaucrats to make them pay for their railway company's obligations. If they only want to pay for one border station, then fine, their trains can terminate at Ashford and stop disrupting what should be a regular clockface timetable on the South Eastern.

[Electric train]

Such are the perils of a fully private operation and the complications of Brexit.

So fully private that Eurostar is 55% owned by the French state railway, 30% by the Quebec civil service pension scheme, 5% by the Belgian state railway, and only 10% by an American asset management fund. Sounds 90% foreign public sector to me. Not really sure why we're continuing to allow their trains between Ashford International and London St Pancras really – proposing suspending their trackage rights would certainly be an interesting version of playing hard ball with intransigent Gallic bureaucrats to make them pay for their railway company's obligations. If they only want to pay for one border station, then fine, their trains can terminate at Ashford and stop disrupting what should be a regular clockface timetable on the South Eastern.

Difficult to do when Highspeed 1 is privately owned, in July 2017, HS1^▸ (High Speed line 1 - St Pancras to Channel Tunnel) Ltd was acquired by a consortium comprising of funds advised and managed by InfraRed Capital Partners Limited and Equitix Investment Management Limited.HS1 Ltd has the 30-year concession to own, operate and maintain High Speed 1 (HS1), the UK^▸ (United Kingdom)’s only high-speed railway, as well as the stations along the route: St Pancras International, Stratford International, Ebbsfleet International and Ashford International.
Network Rail Highspeed are the maintenance contractor employed by HS1 Ltd

Eurostar has to pay all the security, Border Force etc costs at all 3 UK stations, the UK Government to not provide any finance towards these costs.

Surprised to learn this. Do similar arrangements apply at ferry and air ports?

Yes, the Port Authority pay the cost

[Bmblbzzz]

Eurostar has to pay all the security, Border Force etc costs at all 3 UK^▸ (United Kingdom) stations, the UK Government to not provide any finance towards these costs.

Surprised to learn this. Do similar arrangements apply at ferry and air ports?

Yes, the Port Authority pay the cost

I see, thanks.

[IndustryInsider]

Such are the perils of a fully private operation and the complications of Brexit.

So fully private that Eurostar is 55% owned by the French state railway, 30% by the Quebec civil service pension scheme, 5% by the Belgian state railway, and only 10% by an American asset management fund. Sounds 90% foreign public sector to me. Not really sure why we're continuing to allow their trains between Ashford International and London St Pancras really – proposing suspending their trackage rights would certainly be an interesting version of playing hard ball with intransigent Gallic bureaucrats to make them pay for their railway company's obligations. If they only want to pay for one border station, then fine, their trains can terminate at Ashford and stop disrupting what should be a regular clockface timetable on the South Eastern.

Fair enough.  I guess I meant to say fully private in that the DfT^» (Department for Transport - about) has no say in what it runs and doesn’t run and where it stops.

[Electric train]

Such are the perils of a fully private operation and the complications of Brexit.

If they only want to pay for one border station, then fine, their trains can terminate at Ashford and stop disrupting what should be a regular clockface timetable on the South Eastern.

More often than not its SE Trains that are running late

[Bmblbzzz]

Letter from CEO^▸ (Chief Executive Officer) of Eurostar to the Transport Select Committee setting out the difficulties the company is facing and why it cannot reopen Kent services.
https://twitter.com/EurostarJustinp/status/1574711574337495041

[bobm]

I wonder if Eurostar will ever call at Ebbsfleet or Ashford again?

..and if so how long before both stations drop their International suffix?

[Electric train]

Letter from CEO^▸ (Chief Executive Officer) of Eurostar to the Transport Select Committee setting out the difficulties the company is facing and why it cannot reopen Kent services.
https://twitter.com/EurostarJustinp/status/1574711574337495041

I think the Eurostar CEO is politely saying to the Select Committee and UK^▸ (United Kingdom) Government "you have brought much of this on yourselves" by not providing the UK Government backed loans and as for the Regulator, I assume the ORR^» (Office of Rail and Road formerly Office of Rail Regulation - about), dragging in the sand that is shameful.

The UK would appear to be an expensive place to operate, Eurostar Yellow is small in comparison the Eurostar Red (Thalys).

I fully understand the CEO's point about Boarder controls the Eurostar and La Shuttle were designed and built with freedom of movement in mind the concept of a hard Boarder was possibly not considered

[grahame]

From the BBC^» (British Broadcasting Corporation - home page)

The boss of Eurostar has said its trains between the UK^▸ (United Kingdom) and Paris are carrying 30% fewer passengers.

Chief executive Gwendoline Cazenave said with post-Brexit border checks and current levels of border staff, there were "bottlenecks" in stations.

Eurostar is currently running 14 services per day between London and Paris, compared with 18 in 2019.

Ms Cazenave said the company might not restore some services suspended last year due to the problems.

"The thing is now we are not able to run the same transport offer as what we had before in 2019, because of bottlenecks in stations," she said.

"We have a main issue in Eurostar terminals because of the new boarding conditions between the UK and EU^» (European Union - about), because of the impact of Covid, because of staff in the stations."

From my experience last autumn, Eurostar services and lounges were extremely busy on the service level being operated with the main issue being queues at physical security / scanners, not all of which were in use even on trains that were sold out.  Whilst there is extra processing, I wonder if it suits Eurostar's business model to have a product that's got some scarcity value and run fewer trains than they could at average seat prices above what the average would be if they were running more services.