Eurostar will on Tuesday (24 July) open bookings for its new high speed services from St Pancras Station, adjoining King”s Cross, to both Brussels and Paris. The actual route itself will begin operations on Wednesday 14 November with the existing London terminal at Waterloo closing the night before.
With the first outbound train timed from St Pancras at 05:27 and arriving Paris Gare du Nord at 08:50, early rising (very early rising) business passengers from Britain will be able to reach the centre of Paris before 09:00. For Brussels the 06:00 gets in at 08:56 (all times local).
In the evenings not only will the journey time be quicker but the last outbound has been timed for a 20-minute later departure than previously.
Eurostar will increase the number of weekday services on the London ” Paris route from 15 to 17 by February 2008. There will be ten weekday services on the London ” Brussels route, with the number of trains raised from seven to eight a day at weekends.
Journey times between London and the Continent will be cut by at least 20 minutes, with non-stop times of London ” Paris in 2h 15m, London ” Brussels in 1h 51m and London ” Lille in 1h 20m. Travelling at 186mph, Eurostar trains are 50% faster than the fastest UK domestic rail service.
Nearly half of all Eurostar services will call at Ebbsfleet International, Eurostar”s new station just off junction 2 of the M25, near the Dartford crossing and Bluewater shopping centre in north Kent. There will be seven trains a day to Paris and five to Brussels, with the first trains arriving in the French and Belgian capitals before 09:00.
With two stations in Kent, the number of trains serving the county will increase by 33% ” from 12 to 16 a day. Ashford will continue to have services to Avignon, Disneyland Paris, the French Alps, Lille and Paris.
The new timetable comes into effect on Sunday 9 December and will run until 5 July 2008. Eurostar will operate a transitional timetable for the first few weeks after the launch of services from St Pancras International on 14 November, details of which will be announced later.