Eurostar to London

[socalsteve]

I took my 14-year-old daughter to Paris last week. This figured to be my one chance to travel through the Chunnel, and since my daughter wanted to visit the land of Harry Potter, I made reservations a couple months in advance for us to take the Eurostar train to London for the day.

We had picked up our tickets the previous day (Tuesday), wanting to avoid that hassle and get a feel for how long it would take us to get to the station on the Metro from our hotel. We were told to be at the station at least a half-hour before our train was scheduled to leave.

We arrived at Paris Gare d'Nord at about 7:30 a.m. Wednesday. We went through an airport-style metal detector and those with bags had to put them through an X-ray machine. We then went through immigration, both leaving France and entering Great Britain within 20 feet.

We found our assigned seats in a second-class single-level car. I looked in first class; the seats looked nicer (and you get a meal served) but the coaches weren't that much nicer. The interior of our car reminded me most of the Metrolink cars here in California. There were shelves over the seats to put coats and, on the way home, bags of stuff accumulated in London.

Our train left precisely on schedule at 8:13 a.m. After leaving the immediate Paris area, we were up to speed fairly quickly. I have no idea how fast we were traveling, except that we were going faster than the cars on the adjacent motor route.

The trip to Calais took a bit more than an hour. It went through beautiful countryside. At one point, I went to the snack bar car to get drinks for me and my daughter. It was roomier than the Amtrak snackbars I've seen (Superliner-style). There was a bar and an attendant serving beer, wine, sodas, sandwiches and other snacks. One note: at no point did I hear a message saying the snack bar attendant was going on break!

Right after the Calais station (we didn't stop; this was a non-stop train, unlike the one we took on the return), we went down into the Chunnel. We were under the channel for about 20 minutes. With the exception of occaisional emergency lights, all was dark outside the train. Inside, it was business as usual.

We ascended into the sunlight and were in England. The difference seemed to be that the cars were now on the wrong side of the road. Also, I think the engine switched to internal power; we'd been on overhead electric lines in France.

About 45 minutes later we arrived at London Waterloo station, from where we took the Underground to King's Cross Station, made famous in the Harry Potter book series. I took a picture of my daughter at "Platform 9 3/4" there and we went off to discover London.

The return trip was pretty much a mirror of the outbound journey. We went through immigration and got onto the train. This train stopped twice; once in England right before the Chunnel and once in Calais, right after. One thing I noticed about both trips--when you're in France, they give the announcements in French first, then in English. When you're on the English side, they use English first, then French. They made no announcements in the Chunnel, so I don't know what they do there!

It was a great trip. It sure highlighted the differences between European rail service (clean, punctual) and Amtrak (well, you know). You'd think that if Britain and France could get together on a service like this, we could do the same here. Oh, well.

 

[MrFSS]

We went through an airport-style metal detector and those with bags had to put them through an X-ray machine. We then went through immigration, both leaving France and entering Great Britain within 20 feet.

Great report - I'd love to do that someday.

Question - I thought that when in the European Union, now, there was no immigration any longer? I was just in Austria, Germany, Holland, Belgium and we travelled freely from one to the other without even seeing a border marker. Is it just England that you have to do this?

Thanks!!!

 

[socalsteve]

I thought that when in the European Union, now, there was no immigration any longer? I was just in Austria, Germany, Holland, Belgium and we travelled freely from one to the other without even seeing a border marker. Is it just England that you have to do this?

Yeah, it's kind of weird. I think if you're an EU citizen, you just show an identity card, but we had to show passports and get them stamped. When we flew to Paris, we first flew to Amsterdam where our passports were stamped, and they were stamped again in Paris. But there was no Customs check (i.e, luggage search or questions) either place. When we left, no immigration from Paris to Amsterdam, but many questions before we got on plane in Amsterdam for U.S. I think they're still kind of figuring it all out.

 

[MrFSS]

but many questions before we got on plane in Amsterdam for U.S. I think they're still kind of figuring it all out.

Yep - we flew in & out of Amsterdam, too. When we hit Amsterdam we had our passports checked and then flew to Vienna. We picked our luggage up in Vienna and walked out front and got on a bus. No checkpoint of any kind. Right off the plane out into the city.

It took us 40 minutes to get through security in Amsterdam coming back to the US and then in Detroit they just waived us through, no questions asked. I guess I look like an American!

 

[Shinkansen1966]

As a UK citizen, living in London and a regular user of the Eurostar, just thought I'd respond with a couple of points.

1. Although the UK (or call us Great Britain, if you like!!) is an European Union member state, we don't take part in the Schengen agreement Most EU countries are in Schengen. The exception are us Brits, Ireland and a few others. If you are in a Schengen country, you can travel to other Schengen countries with no border controls. We're not in Schengen, so there are immigration controls between UK entry points including airports, the Eurostar and ferries. I wish we would join in. Hope that helps clear things up. Happy to give more help if needed...

2. As an EU citizen, I don't need any visa or additional paper work beyond my passport to travel around anypart of the EU (regardless of the Schengen agreement). If we had ID cards (like almost every other EU country) we could use them to get around instead.

3. The Eurostar collects its electric power from overhead lines in France, the Channel Tunnel (which is oddly known as the Chunnel in the America). On the newly opened high speed section of track in the UK, the Eurostar also collects power this way. Elsewhere on the Eurostar approach to London, the train collects its power by way of a third electrifed rail running parallel to the tracks.

4. On the high speed section, the Eurostar travels at 186mph (300km/h).

5. About 90 per cent of Eurostar trains arrived on time!