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[Adam]

From The London Evening Standard:

Next stop on Eurostar's 200mph route to Paris will be the Albert Hall
Dick Murray, Transport Correspondent
07.10.10

Eurostar today unveiled its new 200mph trains that will open up routes across Europe and bring Paris closer to London than Manchester or Liverpool.

The company is investing £700 million in 10 e320 bullet trains and refurbishing its 16-year-old fleet. A cab and carriage of the new train was on display today in front of the Royal Albert Hall.

The e320 trains will bring the journey time from St Pancras International to Gare du Nord down from two hours 15 minutes to about two hours. This compares with the fastest times of two hours five minutes to Manchester and two hours eight minutes to Liverpool on Virgin Trains.

The e320 will be also be compatible with the high-speed networks in countries such as Germany, Holland and Switzerland, opening up the possibility of routes to Amsterdam, Geneva and Cologne.

The German-built trains, capable of carrying 900 passengers compared with 750 on the existing Eurostar, will come into service in 2014.

The refurbishment of the current fleet will be completed in time for the Olympics in 2012, Eurostar said. It is being carried out by Italian car interior designer Pininfarina, best known for its work with Ferrari. All the seats will be equipped with wi-fi and video, the most advanced "infotainment" systems of any trains in Europe.

Nicolas Petrovic, Eurostar chief executive, said: "Over the last 16 years Eurostar has revolutionised travel between London, Paris and Brussels but our sights are now set on expanding our business across Europe."

Eurostar, which began services in 1994, this month became a single corporate entity owned by three shareholders: Britain's LCR, the French national rail operator SNCF and Belgium's SNCB.

Transport Secretary Philip Hammond, inspecting one of the new trains in Kensington Gardens today, said: "The transformation of Eurostar into a single entity has created a company well placed to attract the resources and investment needed to deliver a world class service. That's good news for passengers but also for the UK taxpayer who owns 40 per cent of Eurostar International."

Investment in the new fleet will be funded by Eurostar with a combination of cash and bank financing.

German transport giant Deutsche Bahn will unveil its new train for services to London at St Pancras in two weeks.


Seeing is believing: Eurostar brought one of its new e320 trains to the Royal Albert Hall today on a lorry to mark its announcement that it had placed a £700 million order for 10 with a German company


A Eurostar e320 trains arrives outside the Royal Albert Hall today

In my view, fantastic news and surprisingly quick to get the refurbished trains and also the new trains.

However, the interesting point is that DB will be launching its service on 19th with a test train - one to watch!

[CafeFantasia]

This is great news. Having brand new trains and a 15 minute shorter journey time will take it from being excellent to super excellent :-)

The exterior of those new trains looks so cool. I mean, they look like trains from the year 2014. I can't wait to see what the interiors look like.

[lorrig]

Only really relevant if you happen to live in the south of England. Makes no difference to the rest of us!

[Capoldi]

Only really relevant if you happen to live in the south of England. Makes no difference to the rest of us!

How so?

[smurfy74]

with high speed rail coming to the north of England in less than 10 years , hopefully more people will enjoy the joy of travelling on eurostar, its soooo much better than flying to France

[danwills]

More info & good pictures at this link ??

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-11493287

[Capoldi]

I quite like living further north and having an excuse to stay a night in London to catch the early Eurostar, and with train tickets from Stoke on Trent from about £10 each way and a night in a travelodge costing £40, it's not much extra..heck, it's only £17.50 each way from Glasgow through Virgin!

I firmly believe train travel is the way forward for European holidays, and things are getting quicker and easier all time. One of the main reasons DLP is so fantastic is that it's so accessible. From my front door to Mickeys in 5 1/2 hours? Much quicker then all that flying faff. Keep it up Eurostar!

[SwipatronSparks]

sounds fun, i have never travelled by eurostar... and i live in the north east... i would lvoe to try it some day though =]

[Clara2141]

I love using Eurostar - we live Midlands, an hour by train from London, and is no effort to get to St Pancras. We book into the Travelodge at Kings Cross which when booked early costs about £20 then walk over to the station in the morning. It was only £15 this time so we booked for breakfast too.

I love the ease of it. Go through minimal passport control and security, get on the train then nothing the other side. It's like going to Glasgow but we need our passport. Normally we go into Gare du Nord and then get the RER, mainly so we can get there earlier but this trip we have treated ourselves to getting the train right into Marne la Valle.

Reminds me - need to book out tickets to and from that London...

[SwipatronSparks]

i would consider it if the train wasnt so expensive! (nearest proper train station to us is either durham or newcastle we are kinda in the middle of the two) and it costs alot to get there and back... and i never seem to be able to catch the travelodge when its running cheap... would have to book in for the night we come back too becuase there would be no trains home at that time

[Anthony]

Hallo, what's this? DB's ICE train arrived as planned to London St Pancras this morning - still very weird to see!

Various photos:
http://twitpic.com/2yx7ue
http://twitpic.com/2yx7uf
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=2 ... 8994757485
http://twitpic.com/2yzixo

Report: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-11567753

[pussinboots]

An excellent development. Not only for passengers, but if the Chunnel gets busier, the Eurotunnel organization (which operates the tunnel) might finally climb out of debt...

By the way, it seems they didn't have to paint the ICE's nose yellow! (Which is the law in Britain.)

[Adam]

Also, DB completed their demonstration of evacuating a train over the weekend successful, showing Eurotunnel that it would be suitable to run through the tunnel. The key change is that trains will comprise of 2 x 200 metre trains, rather than 1 x 400m like the current Eurostars. This means that the trains do not run continuously, so can't be evacuated continuously. However, they demonstrated that they could evacuate them and use the tunnel's air system to move smoke away from the passengers whilst evacuating. They have even suggested that having 2 trains could be safer!

They are hoping for Eurotunnel to change the rules to allow the trains to run like this, as well as having power under the carriages rather than in the end carriages, which was part of the problem for the current Eurostars breaking down. The new Eurostars will run like this as well, so it is vital that the rules are changed.

All very exciting - with more operators suggesting they might start to run services!

Also, figures for Eurostar were up over the summer - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-11565505

[MattyD24]

hope i'm not offending/insulting anyone from continental europe on here, but if i have done, i apologise in advance, but rumour on another forum i tend to look at, suggests the french arn't happy about german sompany siemens are constructing the new Eurostar E320

//http://www.railforums.co.uk/showthread.php?t=37036

[Adam]

It's been a long time, but having been reminded on this yesterday, it seems that Alstrom have dropped their legal challenge over the order of the new trains since SNCF bought 40 new trains:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012 ... ar-siemens

On the same matter, hopefully, it won't be too long before the first refurbished trains are put into service.