| Top Commercial Speed | 186 mph, 300km/h |
| Top speed in England | 100 mph 160km/h |
| Top speed in the Channel Tunnel | 100 mph 160km/h |
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The Eurostar was Europe's first international train, designed to take advantage of the Channel Tunnel, to provide a high speed rail service between London and the UK to destinations in Continental Europe.
It is a remarkable 20 cars long, some 400 meters long (1320 feet) or ¼ of a mile. It is made up of an engine at each end and 2 buffet cars with 2nd class at each end, and the 1st class sandwiched in between the buffet cars and 2nd class in the centre. Like the TGV it is a fixed trainset, and the coaches all share a common bogie. However unlike a TGV the two coaches in the centre of the train do not share a bogie so that it can be broken up in the middle. This is for safety reasons when in the tunnel.
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| Above: The Eurostar is so long, you can see it continues on right around the corner! |
It is the longest passenger train in the world. It has to do with capacity. The Channel Tunnel is only a two track railway, and at the same time is the artery between the UK and Europe. Clearly one can see this could be a bottle neck. However if each train has an exceedingly high passenger capacity it shouldn't matter that only a limited number of trains can travel down the channel tunnel. Also as the French have learned, high speed train services attract so much custom often they have to couple two of their TGVs together to cope with demand, not to mention double decker TGVs. Obviously a double decker Eurostar would be completely out of the question. With a capacity of nearly 800 passengers per train, it is hoped that this will prevent future problems with the Channel Tunnel reaching saturation point.
Unfortunately there is no definite answer to that. It does incorporate many TGV features such as shared bogies. However although a large amount of French technology was used in its construction, and equally large amount of British technology was used as well. For example, the traction motors were assembled in the UK and use British asynchronous traction drivers instead of synchronous traction motors as used in France (don't ask me what the hell that means!). Apparently this was done to better cope with the 3rd rail power supply. Also various signalling controls of the train are British, necessarily to cope with the British signalling system. In fact the Eurostar is capable of operating under 7 different signalling systems. Also the Eurostar had to be built to British specifications which are more strict than in France, which meant the TGV design couldn't be used it had to be completely started from scratch.
I think overall the Eurostar is not a TGV, it does however contain many elements found in a TGV. At the end of the day though it is a matter of interpretation.
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| Above: Note just how small the windscreen is. |
Note that the Eurostar has a very small windscreen for the driver, and has no side windows at all. And infact inside the car the driver sits quite far back from the small windscreen. Why? Strangely it was found that going down a tunnel at a fast rate for several minutes induced a hypnotic affect on the driver
The Eurostar is the only high speed train to have shoes. I don't mean things you wear on your feet shoes are needed to pick up electricity from the 3rd rail in England. Indeed this is rather peculiar because 3rd rail electrification only ever applied to short distance trains. I assume these will go when the Channel Tunnel Rail Link is built. The Eurostar has two pantographs on top, one for French 25kV AC systems and one for Belgium 3kV DC systems
The nose of the Eurostar has been specially designed for operation in the Channel Tunnel, where aerodynamics is of greatest importance.
In the UK the Eurostar runs on existing Kent Lines but is limited to 100mph
The lines in Kent are extremely good straight and flat but there is a fundamental problem. The gauge is far too tight, that is the double track lines are spaced very close to each other. Often when two trains pass each other there is as little as 30 cm or a foot between them. This means there is an overall speed limit of 100mph. If two trains pass just a few centimetres from each other at a relative speed of significantly greater than 200mph then there is a risk that the resulting pressure wave could blow out windows in the train. Obviously 186mph the relative speed would be 372mph and when the trains pass within about 30 centimetres (a foot) of each other there is a serious risk of knocking out windows.
When the Channel Tunnel Rail link is built trains will run at 168mph in the UK or 270km/h.
In the Channel Tunnel the train runs at about 100mph which is the speed also of the "le Shuttle" trains which ferry cars across the Chunnel.
In France and Belgium the Eurostar is free to run at up to 186mph or 300km/h
Because the Eurostar is so outstandingly complicated, being able to operate many signalling systems, able to operate in the UK, Belgium and France under several different power supplies, and with driving units having to cope with not only that but still manage 300km/h, and being 20 cars long and having 2 buffet cars the cost of each Eurostar is £24million and with 800 seats it works out at £30,000 per seat or US $40,000 which is a world record for a train. Having said that, on an average airliner it is about £150,000 per seat or US $200,000. Also the cost of the trains did not amount to much compared with the £10billion or US $15billion bill for the Channel Tunnel. (For Tax haters don't worry, amazingly the Channel Tunnel was financed without any government money.) The High Speed Channel Tunnel Rail link is going to cost £3billion and is going to use some public money.
When it started in 1994 the Eurostar was plagued by unreliability. Being a state of the art train with new technologies things could often go wrong, and especially with signalling in the UK being interfered with by the 3rd rail electric system. However problems appear to have settled, and now Eurostar has stated that if a train is more than 30 minutes late you can have a free return ticket to Paris, which implies they are now confident about its reliability.
In 1995 5 million people travelled on the Eurostar and this had grown to 7 million in 1996. These sorts of figures do imply this is a success. The Eurostar is about the fastest way to get from London to Paris, even though it is limited to 100mph in the UK it still competes well with airlines computing journey time to out of town airports, and long check in procedures.
Well I have travelled on the Eurostar many times to go to Paris. The journey time of 3 hours passes remarkably quickly. The interior of the train is like any high speed train, clean and comfortable. As it travels out of London it goes at about 50 mph, many people have called this the crawl through London. Once it gets out into Kent it speeds up to what most people would call normal train speeds, ie 100 mph and takes an hour to the chunnel. Travelling through the channel tunnel is 20 minutes of black. Well, what did you expect! It goes through the tunnel at about 100 mph very smoothly. Coupled with the fact you can't see anything it feels like you are not moving at all. Once out into France it accelerates up to 186 mph, and everyone gets told about it by a very proud captain in several languages. Lots of people think it doesn't feel like 186 mph, I don't know what's wrong with them. Then again on high speed trains I always watch the scenery (while everyone else does the papers). However the speed is quite noticeable for me, the scenery even in the far distance changes at an incredible rate. Still I don't find the 186mph smooth ride quite as exiting as a British inter city train on the west coast bouncing around at 110mph. Amusement comes when the track runs along side the motorway. Then it looks like the cars are barely moving, and lorries seem completely stationary as we overtake them by about 120 mph. And then its Paris, then its over.
See Also:
Trains Meaning The Death of Aircraft?,
Where the Eurostar features on the EMU list
Related Links:
More Pictures of the Eurostar
The Eurostar Pages