A Faster Option for Christmas Party Shopping

06/09/2007

UK citizens can get to Paris to do a bit of Christmas party shopping 20 minutes faster by riding the new high-speed rail link. The Eurostar Group has inaugurated the link between Paris Gare du Nord station to London’s St. Pancras International.

For holiday merry-makers who want to complete Christmas party shopping in Paris, the trains now travel 300 kilometers per hour. This reduces the trip to just 2 hours and 15 minutes.

More than 110,000 people had booked tickets to travel on the new line between Nov. 14 and Dec. 25, Christmas day, according to London-based Eurostar, more than double the same period last year. Passengers have booked train tickets for Christmas party and holiday shopping to avoid airport delays and long lines at security checkpoints, according to the company.

“Today marks Britain's entry into the European high-speed rail club,'' Chief Executive Officer Richard Brown said in the statement. “We can now run trains at high speed all the way from the Channel Tunnel to London, making journeys between cities quicker, more convenient - and far greener than flying.''

The new train line, dubbed “High Speed 1,'' runs for 68 miles between the Channel Tunnel and St. Pancras. It passes through Eurostar's new Ebbsfleet International station in Kent, before traveling under the River Thames and approaching the terminus via tunnels under east London.