Rail Europe

Eurostar is moving. 14th November 2007

Rail Europe is glad to announce that from 24th July, travellers can book their Eurostar tickets to/from Saint Pancras International for their journeys between 14th to 19th November through Rail Europe's accredited sales agents. The sales to/from the other new station, Ebbsfleet International, are also open.

Wednesday, 14th November 2007 will be a big day for Eurostar. It's the day they launch services from / to Saint Pancras International in central London and the day Eurostar starts running on High Speed 1, the UK's first high speed line.

HS1 (High Speed 1)

High Speed 1 is the biggest engineering project in the UK for over 100 years. With 109 km of high speed track (a quarter of it underground), HS1 will allow Eurostar to travel at its full speed of 300 kmh (186 mph) all the way from the centre of London to the Channel tunnel. Thanks to this new high speed line, journey times will be reduced by at least 20 minutes to offer more seamless journeys and trains will be even more punctual.
Journey times from/to Saint Pancras International will be as follows:
Paris: 2h15
Brussels: 1h51
Lille: 1h20

Saint Pancras International

On 14th November, Eurostar moves from Waterloo International Station and launches services from Saint Pancras International in central London. As of this date, all journeys will depart from/arrive to Saint Pancras International and no longer from Waterloo International.

Saint Pancras is a beautiful Victorian station, with red rubber bricks and streaky bacon stone. It is being transformed, setting new standards for a railway station in the XXIst century. Taking inspiration from New York’s Grand Central Terminal, Saint Pancras International will be “Europe’s destination station”.
The modern Saint Pancras has been designed with the customer at its heart, with a world class brasserie, arcade shopping and a daily farmers’ market selling the very best, fresh, British and Continental products. And last but not least, overlooking the platforms will be the longest Champagne Bar of Europe!

To top it off, Saint Pancras International has also the best connectivity of all the central London stations. It has 6 underground lines and is close to 7 mainline operators at Saint Pancras International, King’s Cross and Euston. Travellers can easily reach the north of England, discover the rolling countryside of the Lake District and the jewels of Scotland.

Kent stations

Ebbsfleet International
On 19th November will open a new Kent station, Ebbsfleet International.
Between Ashford and London, conveniently located close to major highways including M25, M20, M2, A2, the Dartford Crossing and Bluewater shopping centre, Ebbsfleet will offer an easy “park and ride” option to many travellers.
High speed domestic services from Ebbsfleet International will begin in 2009, taking travellers to Saint Pancras International in 17 minutes flat at speeds up to 225 kmh / 140 mph. It will become both an international and domestic rail hub with easy access by rail to all of Kent.

Ashford
Eurostar will still run services from Ashford International and its services will complement those offered at Ebbsfleet International.
Services stopping at Ashford International will be timed to suit both Leisure and Business travellers. There will be 3 trains a day to Paris along with the daily direct Eurostar to Disneyland and the weekly Avignon trains during the summer.

For more information about these services or to purchase an Eurostar ticket, please consult your Rail Europe travel agent. List to be found on www.raileurope.fr/wheretobuy

EUROPEAN HIGH SPEED RAIL OPERATORS LAUNCH RAILTEAM

Railteam makes international travel on high-speed trains
to and from Europe easy for travellers

Real alternative to air alliances and to travel by car

By 2010, 25 million international travellers on European
high-speed rail network

Rail Europe, the leading distributor of European Rail Products overseas is glad to advertise that on 2 July 2007, seven European high speed train operators announced the start of Railteam. SNCF (France), SBB (Switzerland), Eurostar (UK, France and Belgium), Deutsche Bahn (Germany), SNCB (Belgium), NS Hispeed (The Netherlands), ÖBB (Austria), and subsidiaries Thalys, Lyria and Alleo offer then to give travellers seamless high-speed train travel across international borders in Western Europe.

The already wide range of products of Rail Europe, with a Western European high speed rail network that links over 45 major urban destinations in Europe via over 4,700km of track, will keep on growing as the network will stretch to 6,000 km by 2010 and will triple in size by 2020. However, despite the size and continuing growth of the high speed rail network, many international travellers remain unaware of the benefits of taking high speed rail.

Easy, faster and seamless journeys.

From today, if for any reason, a traveller misses their connection because of a late running service, Railteam will ensure they can hop on the next train, irrespective of the ticket type they have.

Rail Europe’s offer will gain in quality with the diffusion of multi-lingual information onboard trains and in stations that will ensure international travellers know where, when and how to connect onto other services.

Railteam information points will be installed in the five main hubs (Brussels, Cologne, Lille, Frankfurt and Stuttgart), and in the coming months, at other major stations such as London, Strasbourg, Amsterdam and in the main high-speed train stations in Paris.

To reduce transit times for travellers, Railteam partners will also better coordinate connecting departure and arrival times.

Railteam members are investing 30 million euro in a new distribution system that will allow international travellers to find an attractive combination of prices, make a reservation, pay, and receive their ticket from Rail Europe in one transaction.  The new system will go live in 2009.

Railteam also will seek to introduce new innovations as technologies develop over forthcoming years such as text messaging about timetables and service disruptions.

A greener and mart choice: the choice of the future!

Rail Europe expects that with travel on high-speed trains becoming even easier and smoother, increasing numbers of travellers will opt for environmentally friendly high speed train travel within Europe. It is common knowledge that high speed rail journeys release significantly less carbon dioxide than flying to the same destinations.

Extensive research has also shown that business travellers are willing to travel up to four hours on rail because of the increased productivity versus the airlines, whilst leisure travellers are prepared to enjoy longer journeys of around 6 hours.

By 2010, the Railteam members expect 25 million international travellers to be using their European high-speed rail network.

Guillaume Pepy, Chief Executive Officer of SNCF said: “It is achievable when you consider that Rail is served by city centre terminals. Factor in the transport time,travelling to airports, grinding traffic jams, security delays ans so on, and it’s pretty clear that on travel times alone high-speed rail is, at the very least, a realistic alternative on any journey across the Railteam member states”

“High-speed rail represents the future of sustainable, comfortable travel across Europe.”