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London to Paris by rail in two hours
Peter Allen in Paris10.09.08
London to Paris train times are to be slashed to under two hours.
Major airlines are desperate to break into the increasingly lucrative market and run rival services to Eurostar.
Air France believes it can cut the journey time and a liberalisation of European railway laws will allow it to compete. Fares could also fall.
A new generation of trains is being introduced which are capable of carrying 900 passengers at an average speed of 224mph, 38mph faster than the current TGVs.
The current journey time to Paris is two hours 15 minutes at best.
Shrugging off the threat, Eurostar said the Air France announcement showed "high-speed rail has become the natural choice for shorthaul business and leisure trips to Europe".
The spokesman added: "It is cleaner, becoming quicker and with rising fuel costs the cheaper alternative to air travel."
Over the past few years thousands of passengers have switched from British Airways and Air France flights to Eurostar.
A spokesman for Air France-KLM in Paris said it hopes the London-Paris service will be up and running by October 2010, along with a Paris-Amsterdam one hour 30 minutes service.
St Pancras International is capable of handling eight departures and eight arrivals every hour - far more than the current timetable which has at most four departures and four arrivals an hour.
Air France is liaising with Alstom, the maker of the TGV (Train a Grande Vitesse) high-speed trains currently used across France and on the Eurostar service. It wants to buy or lease the new generation of Alstom AGVs.
Eurostar said it did not necessarily plan to use the faster trains in 2010 when the route is opened to competitors as its current fleet is only half-way through its 25-year lifespan.
Air France-KLM boss Jean-Cyril Spinetta said he dreamed of seeing highspeed trains "in the colours of Air France", referring to TGV trains as " airplanes on wheels." In April last year a specially modified Eurostar reached a speed of 357mph.
The move to introduce competition is the first of its kind and raises the possibility of other services from London.
Destinations which would be ideal include Amsterdam and Frankfurt, both of which would be within three hours.
Direct links to Lyon, Marseilles, Geneva and Bordeaux would also become possibilities with longer-distance trains, which could operate more like budget airlines.
SNCF, the French rail firm, has already introduced a service from Paris to Biarritz aimed at budget travellers.
Reader views (17)
When I lived in the UK as a London commuter, there were days when London to St Albans in two hours seemed an unrealistic prospect.
- Richard, Madrid, Spain
And still Ruth - with her eye on that aviation job when she looses her seat at the next election will say LHR must expand just when all teh 'sensible' joined up countries are thinking whats teh best way to travel in a fuel hungry world! Labour and civil servant blundering making Britain less and less competitive!
- Christian Ball, London, UK
2 hours to Macclesfield? Ha thats a laugh, you're usually looking at no less than 3 hours
- Chaz, Perth, Australia
I welcome the news of Air France-KLM on the Eurostar service to Paris in 2010. I travel on Eurostar twice or three times a month on a day return to Paris and have to pay exorbitant prices for the service. It's time we had competition to Eurostar.
- James O'Hagan, Sunbury-on-Thames, uk
It all depends where you start from. It takes me 10 minutes to get to Stansted, 1 1/4 hours to get to St Pancras. Of course, no one flies to Paris from Stansted.
- Paul, London
There are almost no internal flights left in France because the the ease of TGV travel renders all the hassle of flying shorthaul unacceptable. The cost comparison is almost an irrelevant part of the equation.
Try London to Paris by Eurostar once and you will wonder quite why there is anyone left on the planet would prefer to fly from Heathrow to Charles de Gaulle, and that's not counting getting to the airports, checking in, going through security, queuing at every stage, being delayed without reason, being treated like manure, etc., etc...
The flying bit is OK, the airports are the problem.
- Ian Olive, Nanteuil, France
300 quid return is too expensive. That cant compete with the budget airlines even if it means saving a couple of hours travel time.
- Mark Clark, Rainham
How I envy the news of high speed rail. Even a slow moving train, never mind 200+ mph.... Would satisfy me.
The nearest train station to Nashville.Tennessee, is either Atlanta or Memphis, each 250 miles away. So if your palnning a trip to Nashville, forget about trains
As a former Edgware resident, and having used everything from Trolley's. Steam to Scotland and back as a kid, the Tube and Routemasters in London etc
I would even settle for a 50mph train.
- Dave, Tennessee.USA
Air France isn't exactly offering to compete, is it? It's admitting defeat for its favoured means of transport, and a good thing too.The Tunnel is the first great victory by rail against its highly-polluting competitor.
If Air France really wants to help, it can try getting London-Edinburgh/Glasgow by train under 2.5 hours. It's crazy that inland journeys are slower than 30 years ago.
- Mdj, Leyton, e10 london
The actual flying time is 30 mins the quoted time includes check in ,its only 180 miles by air and a plane cannot fly much less than 400 miles an hour.Yes its convienient but who pays?It costs £300 to move someone from london to paris by train the balance between the fare and cost is met by subsidy ie tax .A plane uses a ton of kero costing £ 200 even now to move 200 passengers ie a pound(sterling) 10lb weight producing 15kg of co2 per passenger The rest of the fare is landing fees aircraft maintenance and aviation duty which is why budget airlines are profitable.The electicity bill per passenger per trip is £21 the rail maintenance charge is £85 and the tunnel charge £20 .Yes on nuclear electricty you wont produce much co2 but making the rails produces an awful lot .High speed rail will never be economic .In energy terms its easier to synthesise jet fuel from straw or wood chip .
Yes its a convienient way to go from the centre of pais to the centre of london .Travelling by road on sunday it took just over 4 hours The difference is i was carrying a lot of equipment from outside paris to outside london and neither air nor train could have done the job .Cost for 2 £240 including ferry 25 gallons of fuel 50 kg 150 kg co2 5 times as much co2 as a plane .Not green!But if you look at the electicity use of the train as if all coal generated and take into account the co2 from the rails we have 120 kg co2 + 350 or 470 kg co2 per rail passenger ,these are single trip figures .
- G Edlin, london
In reference to the previous comments regarding the coparison in flight an rail times, it is not immediately apparent from reading the article but it appears Air France is going to compete with the Eurostar by operating TRAINS, not flights.
- Wade, Auckland, NZ
£309 same-day Eurostar to Paris return seems high. It's possible to get much lower fares if you take advantage of special offers and are able to be flexible with your times. (I've just booked Eurostar from Ashford International to Lille for £55 day return).
- Patricia, Folkestone, UK
The comparison above is not correct:
You cannot compare the pure flying time with a highspeed train journey.
The time between take-off and touch down ignores:
-time just to get to airport, get from airport to the city centre
-check-in times at airport
-delay at airport, particularly at LHR
etc. etc.
With the Eurostar I can catch the tube or taxi to St. Pancras, checkin takes a few seconds and I only have to be there 30 munites before departure.
I arrive at the Gare du Nord, which is in the centre of Paris and where I can easily catch a taxi or the metro.
Travelling by Eurostart saves around 2 hours each way.
- Weddigen, SW6
OK, now add in the extra time for airport security check in and then, on arrival at the French airport, getting into Paris itself and the train is the clear winner.
- Steve, Cirencester, UK
About time! We are finally catching up with the rest of the world.
All we need now is our internal train sorting! Maybe by 3010 we get get trains from Luton to London to at least run on time!
- Stuart, Luton, UK
Thanks for including CO2 emissions figures e.g. "22kg/CO2" but I am not clear what they mean. Is that kg of CO2 per person, or per vehicle? Is that single or return to Paris or per mile? Please let us know. Thanks.
- Steve S, London
You fail to add in the check-in time for flying.... and the horrible security check people who obviously didn't go to charm school and the fact that you could quite easily lose some valuable perfume if your bottle was a ml over the 100ml quota ... and you can reserve a seat unlike Ryanair or Easyjet...
- Sandra, London
