John Rowland wrote:

Mizter T wrote:
John Rowland wrote:

Mizter T wrote:

Of course. Maybe I should have said "as of today, no more" - or
indeed "as of yesterday evening, no more" - however other posts
here have basically indicated that North Pole depot shut up shop
yesterday, so Eurostar ECS through Queenstown Road was basically a
thing of the past

No, North Pole depot is still open but Waterloo International is
shut!

Not really John, though it depends upon what you mean by open. The
North Pole depot has basically shut up shop now, as AIUI there are no
longer any Eurostar trains there at all anymore, nor have there been
since the last Eurostar left for an an ECS move to Waterloo
International sometime on tuesday (13 Nov).

I'm sorry, I remember all the talk about how the Eurostars would use the NLL
to get from St Pancras to North Pole, and completely missed out on the
subsequent decision to close North Pole.

No problem. The decision to move to Temple Mills (or at least the firm
decision - it might have been an aspiration for a while) appears to
have been taken quite late in the day - from a quick search of
uk.railway perhaps it was taken in 2004, at the same time Eurostar
took the decision to quit Waterloo.

AIUI the new Temple Mills Eurostar depot was paid for by central
government, and in return the government will be transferred ownership
of Waterloo International (and possibly also the North Pole depot as
well) - I'm a bit hazy on this to be honest, but I'm pretty sure both
sites will come into the ownership of central government and at least
one of them was in effect a swap deal (if not both of them).

A significant benefit is that the NLL won't be clogged up with
Eurostars en-route to and from St. Pancras (and AFAICS a North Pole to
St. Pancras ECS move would require the Eurostar to be reversed on the
WLL as well, so clogging that up in the process). Other significant
benefits are securing the Waterloo Int'l terminal and the North Pole
depot for future railway use, though the North Pole depot site really
isn't at all suitable for other property developments and the Waterloo
site is hardly ideal either.