I’m in the second carriage from the front with my designated escalator taking me halfway down the Eurostar trainset at the edge of the original trainset. Incredible: where my old train to Sheffield, this thing just keeps going and going.
New Midland Mainline platforms now spill out on the left hand side beyond the confines of the original building and separated from international tracks with a lattice work of electrified deterrence. To keep the continentals out or the Northerners in I wonder?
Eurostar may be cool, fast, long and all that but it’s not without its faults. Carriages have wide pillars between the windows leaving every 2 or 3 sets of (standard class) seats with only slithers of a view. Typically, seat 53 was one of them.
Today it was far from a problem and I shifted to ensure a good survey of the Olympic site, Stratford International etc. I needn’t have bothered: 2 minutes glide out of St Pancras and we’re underground… and that’s pretty much where you stay. Stratford International is admittedly over a year from being opened (and I’m sceptical Eurostar are serious about running services from there any more than they were about that overnight sleeper regional service) but it’s just a high concrete wall at each side for now.
This line is fast, very fast, an impressive feat of engineering: of the sort the Japanese, French and Germans have been building for decades. Almost all of it is underground or in cuttings though: presumably good for the aerodynamics and the locals but a disappointment for the traveller through the slit of a window. On the odd occasion the train does pop its head above the banks, this part of south Essex and Kent ain’t half bleak and dull, even worse than northern France.
Cast your mind back to crusty old Waterloo International and the asthmatic way you approached it through Orpington and Brixton. It may very well have crawled alongside suburban stoppers but you did get the sense and character of the UK and drew into Waterloo alongside the Thames, catching glimpses of Westminster and the London Eye.
Now you just emerge from a tunnel (having thankfully rocketed along the new line) and straight into the terminus. It’s a great bit of technical achievement and logistical progress but I can’t help thinking we’ve lost something too.
I can’t quite get over the idea of arriving into London from France from the North. I can’t quite fall in love with the experience of arriving back into London or the ‘destination’ station that awaits. But I’d take it over the plane any day.
