Eurostar Train at the Gare du Nord

     Eurostar         

This is the boarding platform at the Gare du Nord railway station inParis for the Eurostar , the high-speed train thatprovides rail service between France and England via the Channel Tunnel. The Eurostar is looking more and more like an aircraft, completewith heavy and time-consuming security checks, and this prevented me from getting any closer to the train. I suppose that one day the trains will eventually be two hourslate on every trip, just like aircraft today, but fortunately they are still righton time for the moment.

The trip to Waterloo Station in London takestwo hours and fifty minutes, door-to-door, which makes it considerably faster thana trip by air (the same trip by air can take four hoursor more, when you add up all the time getting in and out of airports, sitting in waitingareas, etc.). However, there is no price advantage to the train: customers are gougedfor the Eurostar just they are for air travel.Both air and rail travel between London and Paris have always been dramatically overpriced, and it doesn’t look like that will change any time soon.

Photographed onMay 12, 2000.