On Mar 25, 1:08*am, wrote:
actually think it's an inspired choice. And it's not like London's the
first city to do this: west of the Pond, both JFK and Newark do the
same thing. (Newark has a dedicated 'airport station' at the end of
the inter-terminal tramway; JFK connects its to a rail interchange hub
a few miles away. And both charge premium fares for riding the
internal circulation system to the railhead.)

Is that charging structure new, at Newark?

I haven't been there for a few years, but I'm 90% sure that last time
I was there I caught the standard inter-terminal monorail-type-thing,
for free, to the Amtrak/NJ Transit station.

--
John Band
john at johnband dot org
www.johnband.org

On Mar 25, 9:16*am, wrote:
On Mar 25, 1:08*am, wrote:

Is that charging structure new, at Newark?

I haven't been there for a few years, but I'm 90% sure that last time
I was there I caught the standard inter-terminal monorail-type-thing,
for free, to the Amtrak/NJ Transit station.

No, it isn't new. It's just that it was built into the price of your
rail ticket. If you'd bought a ticket to the next station on
(Elizabeth), it would have been nearly $10 less (it's $15 from Penn to
the airport, $5.50 from Penn to Elizabeth). The last time I caught
this train (as it happens, I _was_ going to Elizabeth), tickets were
collected from most passengers by the conductor, but airport
passengers had to retain their ticket to prove at the airport station
that they'd actually paid the $10 supplement.

In message
, at
18:08:44 on Tue, 24 Mar 2009, remarked:
T5 has a pair of spare platforms, and it's the home of BA, who own
about 10% of Eurostar, so that's the obvious place to use.

BA own 10% of Eurostar UK. I don't know what proportion of the Eurostar
trains are operated by Eurostar UK (rather than the equivalent Belgian
and French companies), but all the ones I get to/from Brussels seem to
have French speaking crew.
--
Roland Perry

On 25 Mar, 14:24, Roland Perry wrote:

In message
, at
18:08:44 on Tue, 24 Mar 2009, remarked:

T5 has a pair of spare platforms, and it's the home of BA, who own
about 10% of Eurostar, so that's the obvious place to use.

BA own 10% of Eurostar UK. I don't know what proportion of the Eurostar
trains are operated by Eurostar UK (rather than the equivalent Belgian
and French companies), but all the ones I get to/from Brussels seem to
have French speaking crew.

BA emphatically does *not* own 10% of Eurostar UL Ltd (EUKL). EUKL is
100% owned by London & Continental Railways - LCR is itself not a
quoted company so there's no off-the-shelf source of information about
its shareholders, but BA is not one them - Bechtel, UBS, National
Express Group, EDF Energy and at least one if not more wholly owned
subsidiary company/companies of SNCF are amongst the shareholders.

BA is however a 10% shareholder in Inter-Continental and Regional Rail
- LCR has a contract with ICRR to manage the UK part of the Eurostar
operation, i.e. the British share of the tri-national effort. BA is
however a silent partner in this.

The whole issue of ownership and management of the Eurostar operation,
CTRL/HS1, LCR etc gets very muddled - more so when one considers that
courtesy of the massive loans that HM Government made available to
LCR, HM Government is basically capable of pulling the strings at LCR
(witness the proposed 'sell-off' of the three constituent parts of LCR
- EUKL, CTRL/HS1 and the property interests).

Things get even more interesting when one considers that the contract
LCR has with ICRR expires next year - it could be renewed, but it
seems there could *possibly* be some interesting scenarios with an
outside party - say DB - coming in and buying EUKL and then proceeding
to operate a new, separate international service which might then
precipitate the collapse of the tri-national Eurostar collaboration.
However I've no idea what binding commitments there are in treaties,
contracts and understandings, but the designated UK operator might be
compelled to work in concord with the French and Belgian railways in
providing a tri-national service (i.e. the Eurostar service). How this
plays out with EU competition rules is another question. And whether
DB would really consider it wise to come in and set themselves up
against SNCF is another matter still.

In message
, at
08:29:30 on Wed, 25 Mar 2009, Mizter T remarked:

On 25 Mar, 14:24, Roland Perry wrote:

In message
, at
18:08:44 on Tue, 24 Mar 2009, remarked:

T5 has a pair of spare platforms, and it's the home of BA, who own
about 10% of Eurostar, so that's the obvious place to use.

BA own 10% of Eurostar UK. I don't know what proportion of the Eurostar
trains are operated by Eurostar UK (rather than the equivalent Belgian
and French companies), but all the ones I get to/from Brussels seem to
have French speaking crew.

BA emphatically does *not* own 10% of Eurostar UL Ltd (EUKL).

OK.

BA is however a 10% shareholder in Inter-Continental and Regional Rail
- LCR has a contract with ICRR to manage the UK part of the Eurostar
operation, i.e. the British share of the tri-national effort.

Any idea how big the British share is - 33.3% exactly, or some other
figure?

BA is however a silent partner in this.

And if the contact is almost expired, there isn't much residual value
anyway.

Things get even more interesting when one considers that the contract
LCR has with ICRR expires next year - it could be renewed,

Presumably the contract has to be renewed, but not necessarily with
ICRR. LVCR might pick a different partner, a bit like DaFT chooses a
different partner to operate the UK rail franchises from time to time.

but it seems there could *possibly* be some interesting scenarios with
an outside party - say DB - coming in and buying EUKL and then
proceeding to operate a new, separate international service which might
then precipitate the collapse of the tri-national Eurostar collaboration.

Couldn't DB run the equivalent of an open-access operation, alongside a
renewed "franchise" for the UK Eurostar operations?
--
Roland Perry

Roland Perry wrote:

BA own 10% of Eurostar UK. I don't know what proportion of the Eurostar
trains are operated by Eurostar UK (rather than the equivalent Belgian
and French companies), but all the ones I get to/from Brussels seem to
have French speaking crew.

That's odd. One wouldn't expect the Belgian Railways to solely put
French speaking crew on their Eurostars...

In message , at 07:33:48 on Fri, 27 Mar
2009, "/" remarked:
BA own 10% of Eurostar UK. I don't know what proportion of the
Eurostar trains are operated by Eurostar UK (rather than the
equivalent Belgian and French companies), but all the ones I get
to/from Brussels seem to have French speaking crew.

That's odd. One wouldn't expect the Belgian Railways to solely put
French speaking crew on their Eurostars...

Even the front of house staff at St Pancras are predominantly French
speakers, as far as I can tell (I changed a ticket at the office, tried
to buy a Brussels metro card at the enquiries desk in the departure
lounge, etc). Their English varies from good to gruesome (but is better
then my French, so I can't complain).
--
Roland Perry

In message
, at
18:08:44 on Tue, 24 Mar 2009, remarked:
(2) Heathrow as such is not one place -- it is currently three places
(T123, T4, T5) and may by 2020 be four (T6, adjacent to the third
runway, would be the other one). The 'internal circulation system' is
Heathrow Express and/or Heathrow Connect (which will be replaced by
Crossrail before 2020).

T123 isn't one place - there's a good ten minute walk from T3 to the
"T123" stations. This may improve when "Heathrow Central" appears, but
only if that terminal is not as "distributed" as the current three.
--
Roland Perry

On Tue, 24 Mar 2009 18:08:44 -0700 (PDT),
wrote:

(2) Heathrow as such is not one place -- it is currently three places
(T123, T4, T5) and may by 2020 be four (T6, adjacent to the third
runway, would be the other one).

I thought the plans for T6 put it in place of T123 , with a T5A & B
being built first.

wrote

I thought the plans for T6 put it in place of T123 , with a T5A & B
being built first.

I'm not sure of BAA's intended timescales, but 'Heathrow Central' would be a
new terminal on the site of and replacing T123, while T6 will be adjacent to
the railway between Hayes & Harlington and T123. Accordingly, with three
stops HEx and Crossrail trains will be able to serve T6, Heathrow Central
and T5, or T6, Heathrow Central, and T4. Do LUL have any plans to get the
Piccadilly Line to T6, and if so, how?

Peter