Eurostar Problems

A snowHead

I heard this morning that there was a problem with delays on Eurostar due to EU passenger control.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-64390979

Last April on a Tuesday we endured Gare du Nord in the afternoon.

It was absalute chaos, we were there two hours before the train was due to leave but we still had to get in the queue.

I admit I was a tired and grumpy when I arrived there, but I got worse through the human sheep dip.
I got split up from my misses and sent around to another passport control window as the Passport Machine did the usual thing of not working for me.

Finally being told to remove my belt and pass it through the X-Ray machine....
Perhaps it was a belt swallowing machine as it did not come out the other end.
The French Customs or Border Patrol fella just shrugged and made that sort of rasberry sound that the French do. (I can't spell it).

Having to hold my trousers up for the rest of the journey.

I thought this was just a once off ... but perhaps this is the way the Eurostar works now.

Someone tell me that its all OK and its just the first a bit of bother on the first trains in the morning.

I used to be a frequent quere on Eustostar to Bruxelles every week back at the turn of the century.
It was great then, hop on at Ashford I even forgot my passport one week ... No problem at all.

Has anyone been on it recently and found it either difficult or easy?

We're booked on it to go to Zurich in a couple of weeks. I would like to feel I'm looking forward to catching the 10:26 from St Pancras. rolling eyes

A snowHead

We travelled over new year. UK side not really any issues. Big queues returning on the French side.

I am struggling to work out how it is so hard to get extra border staff when the amount of money they are losing out on selling at 2/3rds capacity must be colossal.

I dont work there and I'm sure there must be some good reason but from the outside its a little pathetic

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

we went on Eurostar last april as well, STP-paris out then brussels-STP return. personally i do not remember there being any issues going out, and from memory our carriage was fairly busy and certainly there was no spare seats and loads of passengers standing in the waiting area, so assume the train was nearly full.
it did not take long going through either border control.

return was fairly busy as well, but we also had a long delay at brussels due to electrical problems along the line somewhere.
the Eurostar terminal at brussels is one sh!!hole!!!
it has been several years since i came back from paris, so cannot comment on the terminal there but at least at STP there are a couple of options for food and drink, am sure at brussels it was one coffee vending machine!!!

it would be interesting to find out what the percentage of the 1/3 of the tickets they have "withheld" are business or premier tickets, where business passengers are potentially not using it as much and having virtual meetings instead wink

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I think they said on the radio this morning that pre-pandemic there were 28 trains a day to Paris, but now there are 20, and passenger numbers are 2/3rds of pre-pandemic levels.

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I found it very easy from St Pancras to Paris but my only other time using it was delayed for hours due to a fire in the tunnel.

I’ve had my own French transport issues this week so I think it’s just a common ‘French problem’.

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One issue with Brussels and Paris is that the Eurostar terminals haven't been updated for years and are the same size, and capacity, as when Eurostar first started running. There is simply not enough space to deal with the extra trains that have been put on due to demand increases since then and to deal with security and immigration checks.

I'm not sure that there is sufficient space in St Pancras to increase the departure area to allow more French officers to work there.

I believe that Gare du Nord is having a new terminal built that should have been ready in time for the Olympics but has since been delayed. This should deliver improved capacity and make things easier.

The other option would be to bypass Paris completely and join the Eurostar in Lille.

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@terrygasson, I believe the 30% reduction in capacity is through running fewer trains.

@DrLawn, we travelled via Paris on the Eurostar for skiing last week. St Pancras was fine. Paris was cramped and disorganised.

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Cheers @sugarmoma666,
I used to think St Pancras was crowded and a bit of a cattle market.
But when I came home via Gare Du Nord last year it was just off the scale.

As the other posters have said, the facilities at both termini, are just not big enough in these post Brexit times.
Its a shame though, the idea of going by train is to avoid all the nonsense we have to put up with at airports ...
2 hours of so called duty free shopping.

Idealy we want to just get on the train and go.
Anyway when I heard the news yesterday .. I felt dissapointed again.

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I used it start of December. No real issues in either direction.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/jan/24/eurostar-trains-empty-seats-brexit-passport-rules-london-paris-brussels

You know it makes sense.

Any advantage queues-wise to travelling on an EU rather than a UK passport?

Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:

The problems took off when Eurostar dropped proper direct services from STP to Bourg St M. There are lots more British skiers passing through Paris now because of this. Loads more luggage to scan and check and ski equipment etc. Paris Gare du Nord doesn't have the space for it all. Eurostar was glorious 20 years ago and it has slipped and slipped and slipped ever since - absolutely crap management choices all the way. I know a lot of people who have worked there at one time or other and they will all give you the same info. These issues were piling up well before Brexit too. Brexit doesn't help but it is not the root cause.

A snowHead

@sugarmoma666, the report says they are running services with approx 30% empty seats, but the guardian article reporting it says it is generally the early morning services affected, i would assume this is an operational decision in case members of staff fail to show up first thing for one reason or another, then allowing them to re-deploy others for later services.

with the rest at near full (leisure travellers) capacity but still down 15-20% business customers.

it also states that they have no plans to re-instate the weekend ski service until this situation is resolved, though fail to mention, that most snowheads would know, that there is now a charter service running this route since Eurostar abandoned it Puzzled

though they are also only running 14 instead of 18no trains per day between London and Paris, i wonder if business customers returned to pre-covid rates, they would be more keen to increase the frequency of services

A snowHead

Eurostar services severely delayed over e-gate issue

Hundreds of Eurostar passengers are being held up at Gare du Nord in Paris due to a technical issue.

Eurostar said in a statement that a problem with UK Border Force e-gates had caused services to be delayed. "We are sincerely sorry for the inconvenience caused," the company said, advising customers to postpone their journeys to London if possible.

Hundreds of people were waiting at the station on Thursday afternoon, many of them families with young children on their half-term break.

Eurostar said: "A technical problem is affecting the UK Border Forces e-gates at Gare du Nord, which is causing major delays on trains to London. "We are awaiting the intervention of a technician to resolve this problem as quickly as possible and reduce the impact on our passengers."

I wonder if there's a technician available in France already or whether they have to travel out from the UK first?

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

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@Alastair Pink, Strangely enough at Calais on Thursday morning it was Police des Frontieres who were first to have problems.
At the beginning of the day queues for PdF were bad.
My passport was checked quickly enough, but the process was:
Pull up at the window.
Hand passport to (seated) lady PdF.
Lady PdF then stands up, crosses the booth, scans passport, returns to her chair and hands back passport....
Multiply that by umpteen....
P&O were issuing vouchers to afternoon bookings because of the delays caused by Calais Port, not PdF - in other words a double fumble by the French.
No queues at all for Border Force booths.

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I just picked up on this thread, I was reading the initial post .. I was very sympathetic to the original poster.
Then I realised "he" was ME Shocked

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Eurostar Problems

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