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Latest News Story
Eurostar overcomes monumental challenges to rival Japan’s famous bullet train
Posted: 06.02.2008
But Still Not Soon Enough For Some Who Wanted It A Year Earlier
Despite the monumental difficulties facing Eurostar in their move from Waterloo to their new home at King’s Cross St Pancras the results were staggering.
* The move was carried out pretty well overnight.
* Expectations were that there would be a drop in the number of passengers in the initial months – actually there has been a 20 per cent rise on the number for the same period last year.
* The new high speed service reliability is “up there” with the bullet train in Japan which is renowned around the world for its time keeping and safety.
* And communications were so successful that only seven people turned up at Waterloo instead of St Pancras during the first seven days of the changeover.
But there was still one totally unexpected hiccough: Apparently quite a lot of people -- including some from overseas – turned up on the 14th November expecting to board their Eurostar train from its new home. The trouble was it was the 14th November 2006, a full year early.
These were some of the key points outlined today by Richard Brown, CEO of Eurostar when addressing the Global Economy Forum of the Cambridge University Land Society (CULS). He was speaking to around 85 senior business people from around the UK on “Eurostar and its Transformation.”
Douglas Blausten, Chairman of the Forum, and senior partner at property consultants Cyril Leonard, opened the session by challenging the rest of the country’s rail system to keep pace with Eurostar.
“None of us could have quite realised the triumph and its success,” said Blausten. “Delivery on time, on budget, and in a record year.”
Commenting on the overall infrastructure and transport system in the UK, he said there were not that many trains “where you can say ‘this is really nice and very fast’.”
Eurostar sets the benchmark, stated Blausten, adding: “Can the rest of the system keep up?”
Brown agreed with Blausten’s assessment of Eurostar’s performance. “We turned an old icon into a 21st century triumph,” he said.
He explained there were three major considerations facing the company for the move from Waterloo to St Pancras:
- The logistics of the move
- Telling passengers
- Making sure their people came with the move which was huge task.
The simplest way logistically, he said, was to move equipment and people over night. The “really difficult bit” was moving the maintenance division from west London.
Brown said it was four years in the planning, with 45 people working full time on the planning alone, and then involving another 100 people overnight to ensure the move went smoothly.
Eurostar is also, said Brown, succeeding in getting more and more passengers off the airlines despite the oft held view that costs were less competitive.
“We have a perception problem, but our prices are competitive,” he said. “But it is more an issue of perception than reality that rail prices offer less value than air travel. We would not be increasing our market share if we were not competitive.”
Looking to the future, Brown said the planned new station at Ebbsfleet near Bluewater at Ashford in Kent offered a catchment of around 10 million people which was a big challenge over the next 12/18 months.
Then Eurostar planned to open up the catchment north of London.
He added that an aim was to really transform the high speed rail service north from London. In the longer term it was hoped to have other high speed lines operating – Eurostar direct from Edinburgh and Manchester perhaps.
And it was important to open new catchments on the Continent other than Paris and Brussels and Lisle, with perhaps in the longer term modified trains running from Holland and Germany.
“No doubt somebody will want to run trains in opposition to us,” he said.
In addition to that, stated Brown, Eurostar intended to establish their environmental credentials.
Eurostar has 10 times less carbon emission than airline flights according to research. And by 2012 the company planned a further 25 per cent reduction.
“Our aim is to make Eurostar the world’s first truly carbon neutral rail system,” said Brown. |
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