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Given LCY can only handle short haul routes (the longest flight, to JFK, has to land and refuel in Ireland before the medium haul leg), Expanding the Eurostar s
by jackweirdy 9y ago
Given LCY can only handle short haul routes (the longest flight, to JFK, has to land and refuel in Ireland before the medium haul leg), Expanding the Eurostar seems a better fit to me.
It recently expanded with direct service to Rotterdam & Amsterdam, future expansions are under discussion.
https://www.seat61.com/trains-and-routes/direct-eurostar-london-to-amsterdam.htm https://www.seat61.com/trains-and-routes/direct-eurostar-lon...
- SideburnsOfDoom 9y agoI was under the impression that you could already take a train from London St Pancras to Amsterdam, or was I forgetting about a change in Paris Gare Du Nord?
- lmm 9y agoCurrently you change in Brussels. Going via Paris would be rather a long way out of your way.
- ghaff 9y agoSort of. It starts direct service in April but it will initially only be direct on the London to Amsterdam leg. You'll still need to change in Brussels going the other way until the Netherlands and the UK setup passport controls for Amsterdam departures.
- user5994461 9y agoDon't bother expanding the Eurostar. The longest routes are already three times as expensive as the plane and take much longer.
- SideburnsOfDoom 9y ago> take much longer ... as the plane If you live within half an hour's travel from King's Cross, eurostar does not take longer for door-to-door time. More pleasant and less weight restrictions too
- user5994461 9y agoThe eurostar London to South France is 6 hours and 100-300 GBP. It's about a thousand kilometers. Plane can do faster and cheaper door to door.
- ghaff 9y agoAnd Eurostar is 1.) Far more pleasant than (in particular) budget European airlines and 2.) Not much longer downtown to downtown (and less for some routes like London to Brussels). Similarly in the US, I basically never fly from Boston to NYC or NYC to Washington. I admittedly am not optimizing for price--intra-Europe flights can be pretty inexpensive--but I'd much rather take the train than fly even if it costs a bit more and takes a bit longer.
- user5994461 9y agoThe main portion is 6h of train against 1h30 of flight. Door to door is a few more hours in both cases. I understand the feeling. I hate flying too, in particular cheap European airlines. Gotta admit that there is an inflection point though, maybe around a thousand kilometers, where trains are struggling to keep up.
- ghaff 9y agoI agree south of France is probably borderline by train from London. Germany probably is as well. Likewise, I won't usually take the train from Boston to Washington DC. Just too long a trip under most circumstances even if the prices were comparable. It depends on the speed of the service of course but, even with relatively high speed rail, a thousand kilometers is probably at the outside edge of where a train makes utilitarian sense.
- user5994461 9y agoIt's the highest speed trains. There is a speed meter on one side of the carriage. The cruise speed is beyond 300 km/h.