Friday Reads – 29 November 2024

1. If Eurostar buy 50 more trains they would have a case for monopolising the Stratford Depot. There is no more railway land at Stratford and more to the point limited platform slots at St Pancras.
   New operators would be welcomed in SE England at Ashford by the local council with parliamentary support for investment and jobs. Similarly for service to Stratford and Ebbsfleet.
   NorthStar was converted for the diesel IEP GWR fleet. Access anywhere else is imaginative.

2. @Alek

   This is basically about the general UK (ORR) requirement that depot access in the UK is not a closed shop – it is open to all subject to various criteria.

   This is even more important with Temple Mills (Stratford) as there is nowhere else in the UK which is geared to accommodate UIC-body gauge passenger trains which are now the norm on HS1 continental services. [I’ll ignore the NeneValley preservation exception!]

   Gone are the days when UK-body gauged Eurostar trains could run to North Pole depot or elsewhere over ‘classic’ UK-gauged tracks.

   The same is likely to apply to new Open-access competitors who are mainly running on the European mainland.

   Furthermore there used to be a UK security requirement for continental passenger trains to be checked at Stratford in-between runs abroad. I think this still applies to Eurostar, and may also apply to future open-access services.

   The prospect of having to set up an entirely different depot and security facility for open-access operators somewhere else close in time to St Pancras and on a UIC-gauge line, would probably be viewed as a disproportionate requirement. So ORR is likely to enforce some degree of access.

   The access charges are certainly something that Eurostar will want to haggle over, but that too is a point for ORR judgement. Possibly a ruling might be similar to it ruling in TfL’s favour about the excessively high charges sought by HAL for additional TfL train slots to Heathrow Airport through the HAL tunnels.

3. Thanks I was thinking NorthPole & even checked it, whilst typing GWR took over or thinking about EuroStar. If there is a StP slot there will likely be security capacity too, same with Border control. I had in mind stabling and servicing, there is the will and opportunity at Ashford by the UIC line. Not sure if it still counts as close in time at 38 HSR minutes but there is no need for ECS moves by cooperation with SE-HS. Early starters and late terminators would clear security and immigration at Ashford and use SE for the tails.
   The earliest contemplated operation is over 5 years away and will likely begin with a couple of daily trips so we are a decade away from depot constraints – but it would be nice to safeguard options. Eurostar has gained a reputation for premium fares so would position for a premium service. Others would compete on price and compromised timings with more flexibility. Even a future sleeper service arrival at Ashford would allow luxury passengers to alight at their optimum time to breakfast and shower before a domestic link to their meeting point. Departing sleepers could board at St Pancras.

4. On the opposite side of the Stratford-Lea Bridge line but otherwise adjacent to Temple Mills depot is New Spitalfields Market, on a site whose future has been in the balance for some time, so an expansion of some sort probably isn’t totally out of the question in future. COLC hasn’t put an end date on the market but one seems inevitable given recent announcements.

   St Pancras is certainly going to be a challenge, but the conclusion of discussions I’ve seen elsewhere is essentially that unless the UK was to suddenly rejoin the EU, something major will have to be done, new operators or not. The only conceivable remedy is to take over more of the building for international passenger operations. This would be a considerable undertaking requiring extensive design with input from UK and French border authorities. It will inevitably have to involve conversion of some commercial space, with the requisite loss of revenue for Network Rail.

   Eurostar gave up on Ebbsfleet and Ashford for compelling commercial reasons. The numbers travelling were nowhere near enough to make it work, even pre-EES. It’s hard to see how they could be viable for anyone else, especially as terminating points. The cost of all the personnel needed for both the operator and border forces at any additional site rules out being able to tempt travellers with a heavily discounted service or subsidising free travel into London via other means.

5. July, 2024 Waltham Forest councillors backed the Leyton Mills scheme which will guide development in the area over the next 15 years earmarks four key areas for development: New Spitalfields Market, Leyton Mills retail park, Temple Mills bus depot, and Eton Manor in Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. 5,400 homes – 1,700 homes at the Leyton Mills retail park, 2,400 at New Spitalfields Market, and the Lea Interchange Bus Garage would be turned into residential towers containing about 650 homes and a depot for electric buses.

   The economics of additional operators do not allow for much infrastructure investment. At the end of the day SEHS are sending empty trains to collect the homeward bound theatre goers and such so parking up the continentals would not incur marginal costs. Additional city pairs will have centre demand but from longer distances they are more for future ecowarriors reducing carbon from flights. The deals will be more like any station passes like the airlines used to have. Extending Xcountry’s Reading-Gatwick to Ashford would by-pass central London as an example. Ashford-Lille could be a shuttle between domestic networks.

   Personnel are linked to passenger volumes and there is a commitment to restaff the International stations when demand returns. Inbound are pre-checked so it’s a case of confirming identities.

6. @ Alek, Paul

   Open access operators between major European city regions will be even less interested in providing socially-nice services unless someone pays them a subsidy. So forget Ashford, Ebbsfleet and Stratford. Lots of extra staff/security for a paltry few trains a day… if it didn’t pay with a more frequent Eurostar service, there’s no chance for a more marginal cost operator.

   Also their primary commercial target will be the core city regions, and, at low/nil extra cost, the strongest onward intercity connections. The primary competitors will be low-cost budget flights, not the premium Eurostar (as Alek describes it), so simplicity, convenience and overall journey times matter a lot.

   Desiring people to change at Ashford is a no-no and a business killer. As a comparator, try telling Lumo or Grand Central to terminate at Peterborough not Kings Cross…

   It is a separate topic to propose a cross-Manche Kent-Nord Pas du Calais service layer for regional development – but I’d like to see the scale of the subsidy required – and which organisations would have a deep-enough wallet to finance it for more than a few days?

   As an extreme regional example, is anyone interested in providing an affordable commuter service to London from the Nord-Pas du Calais with its low-cost housing (cheaper than Dover or Ashford)? Queen Mary’s heart might be gladdened, but I doubt that Boris’s 2014 suggestion, at a London First infrastructure conference, of a UK return to Calais would prove viable for a targeted train service!

7. Do we know the business plans of the new operators yet? Going head on against Eurostar on city centre pairs seems like a loser, DB were proposing a couple of nearer cities in Germany.
   Ouigo are a successful alternative. Looking a decade ahead low cost airlines may not be low fare with additional punitive taxes and charges. Our regional airports are being penalised out of operation by overheads whilst Gatwick is being taken over by Jet2 Easy Wizz & Ryan.
   How could people adapt to using intermediate stations ? The majority of trips are not ended at Terminii. A ticket from any station in France, or Germany, or BeNeLux could be valid via Stratford to any Anglia or TfL station or National Express coach. Similarly with Ashford for Southern & Thameslink even GWR & XCountry.
   Ouigo uses some non-major railway stations (e.g. Tourcoing for Lille) for the same reason as airlines for lower fees imposed by the rail network company, onward travel arrangements from a Thameslink Peterborough ticket will be more convenient for some. It has to be a different service offering, something like a one day Inter-rail between 2 specified stations booked in advance subject to additional supplements for seat reservations or high speed links.
   Slotting in a couple of dailies in new liveries from three open access operators at St Pancras is not revolutionary, the capacity constraint already limits the possibility of growth. The available capacity is elsewhere and especially the tunnel itself.

8. Sorry, but Ouigo has changed its policy: its trains now depart from Lille-Flandres and Paris Gare de Lyon. The original option of a distant station, so as not to disturb the Inoui TGV market, is over. The SNCF, both in France, Spain and soon in Italy, is targeting the Ouigo range, trains that are present in the usual major stations.

9. @Alek, Jonathan
   I think it’s fair to recognise that Brexit has undermined what market there was for local cross channel passenger rail and killed off any prospect of future growth. The kind of folk that might have commuted from or retired to the Calais area (or vice-versa to Kent) mostly no longer have a passport that lets them do so, and the governments on either side no longer have budgets or political mandates to invest in it. The few that remain already make do with going by road and using the shuttle or the ferries.

   Ebbsfleet is an interesting case study; assumptions were clearly made about the prospects for park-and-ride for continental journeys that were never borne out. I suspect that the effective catchment area for this ended up being smaller than expected given traffic levels on key approach routes and the relative appeal of alternative options. The mixed fortunes of both East Midlands Parkway and (so far) Thanet Parkway should also be telling us that something is amiss with the assumptions about these long distance park and ride propositions.

10. Maybe I should clarify that I never consider demand for train rides from end points but as parts of a transport network. Lille is the first continental transit point to concentrate streams for the tunnel, obviously there will be others along whatever path operators use to load their carriages but limited by the border controls required. The new 50 Eurostar sets are for the combined rebranded Thalys operation so not earmarked for London. The interchange points may have local catchment areas where the time, cost, duration attract a higher ridership but the opportunity for new operators is the wider market outside the city centre link dominated by Eurostar.
    Duty free has returned to the cross channel market for Calais by ferry/car. The segregation of the travel market into urban rail and rural air will change with the climate levies. The German national rail ticket has spread to France and Spain. In the UK we may be seeing the decline of low air fares transfer to more flexible coach operations.
    The case for Ebbsfleet may have been enhanced by dreams of the UK Disneyland Paramount theme park now terminated and spreading development along the Thames flood plain, however now that it exists the economics of using it are different. Thanet too may yet find a role if Manston ambitions are realised. To develop a regional airport system the Government should provide relief such as APD exemption up to say 1m pass pa, then a graduated scale say 50% to 2.5m and zero on domestic arrivals. (Revenue can be balanced from the over-congested airports reaching capacity.) That’s about the level of business required to absorb all the overhead cost required to operate.

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