On 13 May, 07:39, Martin Rich wrote:


Also keeping an intermediate station open for just a few trains a day
must be a much simpler matter than retaining a second terminal, and a
second route into London. *Keeping Waterloo open in parallel with St
Pancras was certainly the original intention. *Presumably, if nothing
else, removing the Eurostar trains' ability to run on thir rail would
have saved some costs, and was only possible once Waterloo had ceased
to be used as a terminal

Martin

Eurostar did hold off from making any public decision about Waterloo
for a while, but I think you'll find that there was very little chance
indeed of keeping the original international station along with St
Pancras.

Several reasons: (1) Removing third rail capability is not just a
matter of taking off the shoes: you can also dispose with some clunky
onboard transformers, and so on. Eurostars are burdened with several
on-board systems as it is, and losing one of them -- 750V DC -- was
welcome. (2) There is no way that Eurostar wanted to stay on any part
of the restricted loading gauge domestic network: the next generation
Eurostar may be double deck, according to CEO Richard Brown, and it
will certainly be UIC 'B' at least. That rules out Waterloo in the
longer term anyway. (3) The long international platforms at Waterloo
are wanted to increase domestic capacity, although the passenger
routes underneath will have to be reconstructed for commuter rather
than international flows. (4) The business case for keeping Waterloo
as well didn't stand up in any case -- even if (1) and (2) didn't come
into it.

Waterloo was always a compromise, because Britain didn't have a decent
LGV to the Tunnel from the start. Happily, the need for such a
compromise (third rail TGVs, for heaven's sake) is now history.