First of Eurostar long awaited Velaro e320 (British class 374, Velaro-UK) sets was taken into use on November 20th. It would run twice between London and Paris and back that day. Sister units of these formidable 16 module super high speed EMUs were used on other days. Until mid December just these 4 runs are done, after which, perfect for the Christmas rush hours, another daily unit will join the used fleet. To my understanding none of the older class 373 Eurostars will be retired or put to depot at this point yet. Addition will effectively only be 1800 passengers to daily capacity / new train. However, this is just the beginning: by 2018 there will be 17 new Siemens built Velaro-UK units in traffic.
Siemens Mobility Velaro-UK is a 16 module Velaro product line vehicle, which uses distributed drive, powered axles are divided to train length. Or actually each unit (true to Eurostar custom) is made of two half units of 2 x 8 modules. This will add failure redundancy and each half of the 400 meter long train can easily be swapped at the London Temple Mills depot to a spare hald unit for this purpose.
Eurostar recently has had three specific problems with their older class 373 TMSF-Eurostar Capital train sets:
1) Availability has been much lower than standard TGVs 99%, sometimes even as low as 93%! I suspect that British modifications are to blame for some of this.
2) Use in winter weather with flying snow has been a big challenge. Unlike on standard (newer) TGVs, the e300 large side grilles on locomotives don't protect against flying snow entering the machines room. Eurostar has been very reluctant to retrofit units against snow, which has resulted in almost yearly major distruptions to traffic, often with units stuck inside the tunnel!
3) Geographical area where old TMST-Eurostars can be used is very limited, confined to 1500 V DC, 25 kV 50 Hz and for at least some units 3000 V DC area. This leaves many big markets like Germany of Switzerland, both nearby, out of reach.
For the new e320 (Velaro-UK) Siemens is well prepared for winter use. Besides their engineering talent they also have a big scale winter lab with Russian train builders. It is almost certain that what works well in Russian arctic weather, will survive well in Central Europe.
Also new e320s are equipped for all four major European electrical systems for rail use: 1500 V DC (i.e. French cities and many classic lines), 3000 V DC (Belgium, Holland, etc.), 25 KV 50 Hz (France and parts of Holland), 15 kV 16,7 Hz (Switzerland, Germany, Austria, ...). German cities will most likely be interesting markets for Eurostar to exploit as well as some Swiss cities. Both are well within reach from London and Paris (terminals for the main route). Going further, travel times will limit use of this train configuration (as passengers grow tired in this kind of interiors).
For the Channel Tunnel (connecting France and United Kingdom) this is only second train to be able to use it. Both Eurostar e320 and older e300 now run through it daily. Deutche Bahn also had plans for the tunnel use from Germany to London, but due to growing demand at home and newer reliable ICE3 406M/MF trains used for international traffic, DB class 407 (also Velaro, Velaro-D) had to take over these instead, so London will have to wait many more years.
Pictures from Siemens of the Eurostar Velaro-UK:
Great pictures and write-up. Thanks.
While none of the Eurostar sets have been retired, some of the shorter sets that were intended for North-of-London services but ended up in SNCF TGV service have been retired. I do not believe they have been scrapped yet.
Are they still limited to termini in Paris and Brussels? I rode it once from Brussels and unlike other European HSRs, the check-in procedure was in a totally separate area very much like an airport, with security and pasport control. That would require substantial remodeling of any prospective staions in Germany such as Frankfurt or Köln.
C&NW, CA&E, MILW, CGW and IC fan
schlimm Are they still limited to termini in Paris and Brussels? I rode it once from Brussels and unlike other European HSRs, the check-in procedure was in a totally separate area very much like an airport, with security and pasport control. That would require substantial remodeling of any prospective staions in Germany such as Frankfurt or Köln.
You have hit on the biggest stumbling block in implementing the kind of longer distance services hinted at in the original post. Eastbound customs etc. formalities are conducted in London, but as you point out for westbound services there are a number of possible originating locations. At this point the authorities have shown no inclination to establish those facilities at other than the already existing setup in Paris, Brussels and Lille. Currently there is no room in St.Pancras to set up Customs and Immigration formalities for arriving passengers as there was at Waterloo but there would be a question of security.
There are are a couple of Eurostar holiday services to/from the south of France and the Alps but these now require passengers to detrain at Lille, go through the formalities and then resume the journey. Although passengers return to the same seat on the same train, it is hardly a one seat ride. The scheduled lay over time is 1.5 hr. At this point it appears that any services from beyond Paris or Brussels will be subject to the same procedure (there is some thought that services from beyond Brussels might go through formalities there, but the layout at Midi is not well suited to that.
All of this puts a damper on running the more expensive Eurostar equipment beyond the current end points. We'll see how this all shakes out.
Thanks! I thought I would write a few lines since this is by far the largest capacity super high speed EMU now in traffic in Europe. Chinese and Japanese seem to have similar trains (Chinese even use earlier model of Velaro/ICE). Hope the winter use will be easier for e320 than ever was with e300/TMST-Eurostars!
NorthWest Great pictures and write-up. Thanks. While none of the Eurostar sets have been retired, some of the shorter sets that were intended for North-of-London services but ended up in SNCF TGV service have been retired. I do not believe they have been scrapped yet.
For those interested in shorter Eurostar TMST Nortwest discusses here are a couple lookalike pics from Paris Gare du Nord. This unit fooled me for a while before I checked the consist for real. A few of these directly SNCF owned trains were used even quite recently between Paris (Gare du Nord) and Lille (north of it on high speed line). As you see they are actually used for TGV service (not Eurostar). And...these units were torched along with some TGV-PSE trains. So for TMST-Eurostar Capitals it appears the phase is turning to "wrecked units serving remaining ones for spare parts" for the coming years.
And, as Nortwest points out, to my knowledge too the TMST-Eurostar Regional trains (slightly shorter) have survived so far, though they are waiting for possible new use. Something that might newer come with more productive and surefooted TGVs rolling off the production line.
Sounds like you too have been suffering from this unusual form (within European Union) of British border control formalities. I wonder how all the other EU countries manage with so much less, even with the immigration now causing border formalities taken into use "temporarily" (meaning many years to come). I live in Nordic where so far Finland, Sweden and Norway (not part of EU, but part of the traditional Nordic group of countries) have started border checks again to stop the unorganized flood of immigrants (not nearly all are refugees, and will be sent back once their cases have been examined). Denmark has traditionally had good border control too, as now has Germany. Iceland does not have to worry too much.
I wonder if the Eurostar regular connection from London to Lyon will survive with all these 1,5 hour checks happening in Lille. After all, taking a plane might turn out more convenient?
Buslist schlimm Are they still limited to termini in Paris and Brussels? I rode it once from Brussels and unlike other European HSRs, the check-in procedure was in a totally separate area very much like an airport, with security and pasport control. That would require substantial remodeling of any prospective staions in Germany such as Frankfurt or Köln You have hit on the biggest stumbling block in implementing the kind of longer distance services hinted at in the original post. Eastbound customs etc. formalities are conducted in London, but as you point out for westbound services there are a number of possible originating locations. At this point the authorities have shown no inclination to establish those facilities at other than the already existing setup in Paris, Brussels and Lille. Currently there is no room in St.Pancras to set up Customs and Immigration formalities for arriving passengers as there was at Waterloo but there would be a question of security. There are are a couple of Eurostar holiday services to/from the south of France and the Alps but these now require passengers to detrain at Lille, go through the formalities and then resume the journey. Although passengers return to the same seat on the same train, it is hardly a one seat ride. The scheduled lay over time is 1.5 hr. At this point it appears that any services from beyond Paris or Brussels will be subject to the same procedure (there is some thought that services from beyond Brussels might go through formalities there, but the layout at Midi is not well suited to that. All of this puts a damper on running the more expensive Eurostar equipment beyond the current end points. We'll see how this all shakes out.
schlimm Are they still limited to termini in Paris and Brussels? I rode it once from Brussels and unlike other European HSRs, the check-in procedure was in a totally separate area very much like an airport, with security and pasport control. That would require substantial remodeling of any prospective staions in Germany such as Frankfurt or Köln
Are they still limited to termini in Paris and Brussels? I rode it once from Brussels and unlike other European HSRs, the check-in procedure was in a totally separate area very much like an airport, with security and pasport control. That would require substantial remodeling of any prospective staions in Germany such as Frankfurt or Köln
A few more pictures for background on the traditional TMST-Eurostar Capitals trains, with two locos and 18 trailers sandwiched in betweeen.
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