The new Eurostar service from London’s St Pancras International Station to Marseilles is due to start on May 1 — but you can book your seat now. This is the first new service on the line for many years and along the way there will be stops at Lyon and Avignon.
Eurostar has run a service to Avignon since 2002, but only once a week in the summer months. The new arrangement is a much bigger deal, with trains running year round, up to five times a week. From London, journey times will be from around 4.75 hours to Lyon, 5.75 hours to Avignon and 6.5 hours to Marseilles. Fares will be from £89 (Dh500) return to Lyon and £99 to Avignon and Marseilles.
Eurostar has other significant news this year. In late 2015 it will start operating its new longer, wider and taller e320 trains. Their redesigned interiors will, among other things, provide all passengers with roomier, reclining seats and free Wi-Fi (there is no Wi-Fi at the moment).
Existing trains will continue to be used, with new trains introduced gradually. But these developments are very welcome for those of us who like to travel to the Continent by rail.
News of the new route and rolling stock comes just after Eurostar marked its 20th anniversary. It’s the perfect time to assess how the service has progressed over the years in key areas — routes, journey times, fares and ticketing.
Routes
Over the past two decades, expansion beyond the key destinations of Paris, Brussels and Lille has been limited to Disneyland Paris, the French Alps (ski trains) and, as mentioned, to Avignon. The next new direct service after Marseilles will be to Amsterdam, via Antwerp and Rotterdam, and is scheduled to start in late 2016.
Eurostar’s only United Kingdom departure points remain London and Kent. That said, the process known as “through ticketing” has been gradually expanded. This allows passengers, on a single booking, to combine a Eurostar journey with a connecting service from more than 200 UK stations — and to dozens of French stops. With these tickets, if a delayed train results in a missed connection, you can take the next available service at no extra charge.
Journey times
The opening in 2007 of the high-speed line between London and the Channel Tunnel reduced Eurostar’s journey time from London to the Continent by around 20 minutes — to 2.25 hours to Paris, and one hour 50 minutes to Brussels. Though the new e320 trains will be capable of travelling faster than the present stock, at 198mph, sadly journey times will remain unchanged for the foreseeable future, because of a 300km/h speed limit on the tracks.
The return leg to London from Marseilles, Avignon or Lyon will take around 75 minutes longer than the outbound leg, as passengers will need to disembark in Lille for security and immigration checks.
Fares
When Eurostar launched in 1994, the cheapest return fare to Paris was £99. Now the lead-in fare is £69, as it has been for many years — though I had to search two months ahead to find this fare on the London-Paris route.
Flying can often work out cheaper than taking the train, though at least with Eurostar you don’t pay extra for luggage and reserving a specific seat, as you do with many airlines.
Eurostar made two overdue improvements last month. First, most single tickets are now priced at precisely half the return fare — previously they cost more than that. Second, standard-fare tickets can now be changed — for a fee of £30 for each leg, plus any addition in the price of the new fare. Before now, standard tickets were non-changeable.
Booking horizons
To get cheapest fares, you need to book well ahead, and the good news is that Eurostar has extended its booking horizons considerably. They are now 180 days on major routes and 280 days on the new Marseilles route. This makes general holiday planning with Eurostar much easier than it used to be. However, the fly in the ointment is that you can only book up to 83 days ahead on through-ticketed bookings on a UK rail journey.
For more information, visit www.eurostar.com
