I like Eurostar. I like the sense of speed, combined with a view. I like travelling from city centre to city centre. And now that I have the taste for train travel, if I'm going somewhere without Ros, or travelling separately from her for some reason, the idea of going by train is quite appealing.
Eurostar have, evidently, seen me coming, as I discovered today. I had received an e-mail with an up to date statement of my Eurostar Plus points, and I noticed that this weekend's trip wasn't shown. So, being vaguely efficient - mostly Ros's doing, I accept - I rang to check things.
"Ah yes,", said the very nice woman at the other end of the phone line, "you should have those, and I'll sort that out, they'll be on your account tomorrow.". I noted how helpful this was, and that I was using Eurostar to travel further afield in March.
She then told me that, from next month, I'll be able to buy through tickets to a whole range of places across Germany, presumably connecting through Brussels and Cologne, which sounds quite exciting for someone who, like me, gets pleasure out of making their own travel arrangements and exploring alternative routes.
So, a task done and useful information gleaned, not bad for one day...
7 comments:
While this sounds great, bear in mind that before Eurostar, it was possible to buy through train tickets from anywhere in the UK to anywhere in mainland Europe from your local railway station. And unlike on Eurostar, no pre-booking was required: your ticket was valid on any train and ferry by any reasonable route, and the fare was usually distance-based (with possibly having to pay supplements on faster trains, such as IC in Germany). Eurostar operates in many ways like an airline rather than like a train service, and for the first ~10 years would not talk at all to other train operators, so that trans-European through ticketing system no longer worked for the UK (you can still sometimes get traditional international through tickets in mainland Europe). So Eurostar is only partially restoring something it helped to take away in the mid-1990s.
What eurostar really needs to make sense is for the UK to join Schengen so we can just get on without the passport rigmarole and having to ask permission of an official before we can travel.
Alex,
Well, yes, but it was much harder to work these things out then, as you relied on having a ticket clerk who 'got it' and was willing, and had the time, to help.
I'm the sort of person who would drive a ticket clerk crazy with 'what ifs' and so, having the ability to do that myself is great.
Anonymous,
Indeed, although given the requirement to carry ID in some parts of Europe, I would be carrying my passport anyway...
Mark: I'm not so sure it was harder then. You just went to the counter and bought a ticket. It perhaps took a bit longer than it would for a domestic train ticket, and maybe you needed to speak to a particular clerk, but the principle was much the same. Nowadays you have to be a wheeler-dealer to work out all the options available for international train travel and how to avail yourself of them. UK National Rail ticket offices don't deal with international trains at all. Operators co-operate to provide through tickets when they feel like it, and only through specific outlets. For instance, DB does some excellent value 'spezial' tickets from Lon don to Cologne website (Eurostar to Brussels then ICE to Cologne). But these are only available from DB's website, or from the new retailer Loco2. From Eurostar's website, you can only buy tickets to Cologne that involve travel by Thalys between Brussels and Cologne. DB, of course, does not sell these. RailEurope is owned by SNCF (and has recently changed its name to reflect this). It sells German train tickets, but only the full-price open ones. But it's the best place to go for French tickets.
Loco2 recently started selling through tickets from regional UK stations to mainland Europe... but Eurostar keeps the best regional deals for itself.
In essence, international rail ticketing in Europe is a mess, and it's no wonder people still choose to fly. Whirle ticketing on the privatised UK rail is also messy and difficult to understandat least all ticket sellers sell the exact same range of tickets at the same prices, and you can buy through tickets from anywhere to anywhere (even if these do not necessarily offer the best value for your journey!). IMO you want an idea of what UK rail ticketing would look like had the Tories had privatised our rail network the way they had originally wanted to in the 1990s, you only have to look at cross-border ticketing in Europe!
It appears that Eurostar has from today started selling tickets from London to Cologne (and some other German cities) involving travel by DB. But this doesn't much change the situation where you have to be a wheeler-dealer checking several different sites to find the best option for travelling by train to mainland Europe.
Alex,
That's a fair comment, and it would certainly be nice to be able to through ticket from Stowmarket, my nearest station to, say, Buchs, but I have a sneaking feeling that, at some point, the various rail companies will either be forced to do something, either by competition or by the European Commission...
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