socalsteve
Train Attendant
- Joined
- Feb 15, 2003
- Messages
- 80
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.
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.