It was inevitable the question would come: why is my #CrossChannelRail project taking me nowhere in the UK other than London, and along the HS1 line between London and the Channel Tunnel?
The simple answer is that I had to draw a line somewhere – I cannot in a three week project cover absolutely every aspect of through trains through the Channel Tunnel. Night trains are likewise excluded for example.
But why exclude anything beyond London?
Because it is all too hard for anyone to run from there through to France or Belgium. And yes, it’s harder than running to – say – Lyon or Basel.
The first problem is loading gauge. This is more restricted in the UK than anywhere else in Europe (on standard gauge lines). Conscious of this the Channel Tunnel and HS1 to London were built to continental loading gauge, and not UK loading gauge, meaning trains like a Siemens Velaro or even a double deck TGV-M can run to London St Pancras without problems, but not any further.
The only rolling stock to which this restriction does not apply is the original Eurostar TMST trains, but those are now thirty years old (so reaching end of life, and some have already been scrapped), so even if those could be deployed, they are at best an interim solution. 7 of those trains were shorter 14 carriage versions that at one time ran for GNER to Kings Cross to Leeds (pictured).
Some point into the mid-2030s – once the HS2 rolling stock has been delivered – a version of those trains could perhaps be built for the Channel Tunnel. But for now, rolling stock to run beyond London is even more problematic than to run beyond Paris and Bruxelles.
As if that were not enough, the rail infrastructure in north London is a complete pain – check it on OpenRailwayMap here. There is a single track chord from the West Coast Mainline north of Euston into St Pancras. There is no way into the Eurostar platforms immediately north of St Pancras – you have to branch off at Crouch Hill instead. Good luck getting high speed paths through either of these! The Midland Mainline into St Pancras is easier, but electrification of that line has not even reached Leicester yet. And no connection between HS2 and HS1 is planned.
And as if all that were not enough, the main problem that applies to all possible new stations in continental Europe – the absence of secure terminals in the stations – also applies to stations in the UK except St Pancras and the stations along HS1.
So – to summarise – rolling stock is a problem, paths through North London highly complex, and stations lacking terminal facilities. None of those are easy to overcome. And – as is my way in these projects – I am always looking for practical and workable solutions for problems, and Birmingham, Nottingham or Newcastle hence look too hard.
Oh – and last but not least – while I might still have a UK passport, railways in the EU and not so much in the UK are my thing. Others are probably also better placed to examine the UK side than I am!
Want more background on all of these route and station problems? See this post.
Photo used in this post
Roger Marks
GNER Star
July 7, 2002
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic
