Yet another rail photo for 'Train' Talking, this time a Deutsche-Bahn ICE 3 at Stuttgart
Another intensively flown city pair, London-Frankfurt, could gain frequent high speed rail links in the near future.
On October 19 a German Railways ICE Inter City express is due to arrive at London St Pancras via the Channel Tunnel to test and demonstrate its compatibility with the Eurostar network that serves Paris and Brussels.
This story in The Guardian goes into the technical details.
In the broader context, this means London could have a rail link to Frankfurt that is superior to air services for most potential travellers at least a year sooner, in 2013, than Paris.
The Paris-Frankfurt high speed connection depends on the completion in 2014 of a new high speed rail corridor which currently reaches as far as Paris-Strasbourg.
The proposed Frankfurt-London link would be operated by extending the existing Frankfurt-Cologne-Brussels ICE services onto the Brussels-London route operated by Eurostar.
In fact you can go all the way by train from London to Frankfurt today by changing trains in Brussels, but according to rail fan reports, the connections and frequency aren’t optimal, and same train service is always easier to sell.
Although Frankfurt’s main airport is well connected to the city, and trip times seem on paper to be slightly faster by air, it takes no more than 30 minutes to check-in at St Pancras compared to more than two hours getting to and then checking in at London’s Gatwick or Heathrow airports.
It is fair to surmise that most Australians who are keen to see high speed rail become a reality in this country have acquired the passion by using the fastest trains of European and Japan, and that those who need to travel between Europe and the UK will welcome another way of avoiding the airlines.
The Guardian story also raises the prospect of the ICE service using Stratford East, the new London Olympics venue station, rather than St Pancras, which might help high speed rail compete with the small but handy London City airport for customers because of the opportunity to exchange passengers with Eurostar for Paris, Frankfurt and Brussels at Lille on the French side of the Channel.
It would also take future pressure off St Pancras, which is going to run short of platform slots for Eurostar services in the medium term if growth in the use of rail between London and Paris continues to rise strongly.
By special request: ICE at St Pancras
ICE and Eurostar (right) at London St Pancras, DB photo
Deutsche Bahn's musical entertainment at the ICE presentation.Public domain
A frame from a Willy Kaemena 360 degree image, see comments
8 Comments
Even the existing mixed “slow” (ca. 160km/h) / fast network will get you a long way. For example, Switzerland-Brussels is 6h, seemingly incomparable with a flight. But when you factor in the 2h lead time to the flight, the 1+h to collect baggage and make it back into the city, the 1h flight time, and it is getting pretty close. Add in the inevitable delayed aircraft for an evening flight back (guaranteed with Easyjet this year), and it will likely be the same. No “security” theater to go through either, a real 240V power socket, and leg room to round it out. The above mentioned connections can only make things even better.
I did CH-London back earlier in the year due to a combination of Volcano/BA strike. A flight still wins the stakes at that distance, and definitely cheaper. As an aside, it was the first time through the Channel Tunnel on the Eurostar. The Eurostar dullards seem hell bent on making the trip/ticketing feel as much like an airport as they can, including “security”, border control, pre-boarding (i.e. getting coraled until just before departure), “check-in”, etc; pretty much everything which makes catching a plane a pain, and a normal continental-European train a pleasure.
Ben, when this test is completed, can you post a photo of the German ICE at London-St Pancras? Not just the technical side of it, but the sight of a German train at one of the classic London terminals I would love to see.
You bet. Is listed on the white board now!
I have two responses to this story.
First, London St Pancras has a magnificent champagne bar, where one can buy package deals involving champagne and (eg) strawberries. Now that I’ve read your story, the idea of combining champagne with ICE sounds like an excellent promotional opportunity to me.
Secondly, and in the same vein, I’m wondering whether the Frankfurt – London ICE trains will be stopping at Frankfurt Flughafen as well as at the Hauptbahnhof. If so, then I can see an opportunity for (eg) Emirates or Singapore Airlines to offer a package to Australian-based travellers of ‘fly into Frankfurt and use the ICE to avoid Heathrow’. Sounds very tempting, doesn’t it?
It is interesting to see the changes in air travel when fast trains are introduced. It is worth recalling the Madrid-Barcelona route was in 2007 the world’s busiest passenger air route with 971 scheduled flights per week (both directions). This has been slashed to less than half now with the AVE (fast train) having numerous schedules between the two cities.
Ben,
Did you ever receive that photo?
Glad you reminded me. It lead to the discovery of Willy Kaemena’s site, which has some incredibly good 360 degree panoramic interactive images not only of ICE at St Pancras, but inside this train, and others. A very good resource. Found at:
http://www.360cities.net/profile/willy-kaemena
The top photo above is from the DB press image library which has a St Pancras portfolio you will find at http://www.bahnimbild.de/fotothek/cmd/?aktuell=true
in the meantime I have produced a whole virtual tour of the ICE3 standing in London St. Pancras follow the white flashing dots.
http://www.kaemena360.com/home/ICE3-Tour/
have fun… and wait for 2013 or go by Eurostar NOW