On 29 Jan, 13:37, wrote:

Andrew Heenan wrote:
Political pressure seems to have already guaranteed a token service for
Ashford, but Stratford is so close to St. P-I, that it'll take a
political
storm to add eight minutes to everyone else's journey.

Eight minutes to the journey of passengers alighting at St. P-I, but
compare that against the extra time taken for passengers who prefer
Stratford to get to StPI. To be fair, you'd need to compare likely
passenger preference with estimated delays on both options. Perhaps
even add in issues of station crowding and throughput -- I used e*
from StPI just before Xmas and it was pretty overcrowded just past
the gates in departures.

I'm not claiming an answer either way. But simply stating that everyones
journey is +8 minutes slower isn't right. For myself, at the moment, I'd
prefer the old slower times from Waterloo than faster ones from StPi or
Stratford. From my front door to Paris Thingy du Nord, that would be
easier and probably take about the same time.

#Paul


A well put point. The counter to this argument would be to say that people
would be able to access Eurostar services from Stratford, they'd just need
to use the Southeastern high-speed service to get to Ebbsfleet or St. P and
change. Of course that would then come back round to your argument about it
being less convenient for some people. It's all about the potential market
of travellers from Stratford Int'l really - if it is big enough, then some
Eurostar trains will surely stop there I would have thought.