Eurostar Train at the Gare du Nord

first      previous      next      last     

This is the boarding platform at the Gare du Nord railway station in Paris for the Eurostar, the high-speed train that provides rail service between France and England via the Channel Tunnel. The Eurostar is looking more and more like an aircraft, complete with 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 hours late on every trip, just like aircraft today, but fortunately they are still right on time for the moment.

The trip to Waterloo Station in London takes two hours and fifty minutes, door-to-door, which makes it considerably faster than a trip by air (the same trip by air can take four hours or more, when you add up all the time getting in and out of airports, sitting in waiting areas, etc.). However, there is no price advantage to the train: customers are gouged for 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 on May 12, 2000.