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

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

In message , at 00:59:48 on
Wed, 25 Mar 2009, Andrew Price remarked:
On Tue, 24 Mar 2009 21:54:37 +0000, Roland Perry
wrote:

Although the TGV (and the RER) only service one of the three terminal
complexes at CDG. If you have the misfortune to be using the other two,
there's a significant extra leg to the journey.

Well, that depends of what terminals, and what you consider
"significant" to be. There's a VAL connection between the RER station
CDG2 and terminals 1 & 2 (A-F) which is fast and efficient.

I timed it last June and here are my conclusions:

Landed CDG T1 17.43 twenty minutes late, but v quick to gate
long walk/travolators to main building
Bags on carousel 18.10 then short immigration Q, no customs Q
Arrived RER stn1 18.30 more travelators, shuttle-train ride from T1
RER train due 18.35 but it didn't show.
RER train depart 18.48 different platform. Non-stop Gare du Nord.
Gare du Nord arrive 19.08 stay on RER train to Denfert-Rochereau
Denfert-Rochereau 19.25 approx.

It was slightly quicker the other way:

Montparnasse stn 16.15 Metro
Depart Gare du Nord 16.47 Change to RER at Les Halles
Arrived CDG stn1 17.14 Semi-fast.
Reached checkin Q T1 17.26 Shuttle train etc

Terminal 2G is a real pain, though - there is only a bus connection
to the rest of the airport.

The 2E "satellite" is also a fair distance, with yet another shuttle
train to negotiate.
--
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

Am Wed, 25 Mar 2009 10:50:23 UTC, schrieb Mizter T
auf uk.railway :

RR in turn is, if I
am not completely mistaken, a shareholder of Eurostar Group Ltd, which
is the unified management and distribution company of Eurostar as an
international operation.

You are mistaken - Eurostar Group is the "unified management
structure" that was created in 1999 by the three Eurostar partners -
SNCF, LCR, and SNCB/NMBS. Eurostar Group Ltd is merely the legal
identity of this structure.

Are you sure, that neither EUKL nor ICRR are partner of Eurostar
Group Ltd? Do you have sources for this?

And if, if neither the owner of the British Eurostar trainsets
(EUKL) nor the company which is the railway undertaking running those
trains on British soil (ICRR) are partners in Eurostar Group Ltd, on
what contractual basis can Eurostar Group Ltd interfere in the
business of EUKL and ICRR?


Cheers,
L.W.

-- -----------------------------------------------------

Am Wed, 25 Mar 2009 16:54:52 UTC, schrieb Roland Perry
auf uk.railway :

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?

This is no franchise ....

DB could do what you formulate in your question above, or they could
simply dispend of ICRR and manage the Eurostar traffic on Great
Britain themselves, but sit in the respective boards of Eurostar Group
Ltd, or let this fall back to the international cooperation as before
1999 and negotiate a new setup for the tri-national operation. Or they
could withdraw the EUKL owned Class 373 trainsets completely from the
cross-Channel operation and use them for an Open Access operation from
London to Scotland, for example.

Who knows what is on Mr. Mehdorn's mind...

Cheers,
L.W.

-- -----------------------------------------------------

On 25 Mar, 20:21, "Lüko Willms" wrote:

Am Wed, 25 Mar 2009 10:50:23 UTC, *schrieb Mizter T
*auf uk.railway :

ICRR in turn is, if I
am not completely mistaken, a shareholder of Eurostar Group Ltd, which
is the unified management and distribution company of Eurostar as an
international operation.

You are mistaken - Eurostar Group is the "unified management
structure" that was created in 1999 by the three Eurostar partners -
SNCF, LCR, and SNCB/NMBS. Eurostar Group Ltd is merely the legal
identity of this structure.

* Are you sure, that neither EUKL nor ICRR are partner of Eurostar
Group Ltd? Do you have sources for this?

LCR *wholly owns* EUKL, and I said that LCR was one of the three
partners that make up Eurostar Group Ltd.

This railfaneurope.net page suggests that the split in ownership of
Eurostar Group Ltd is EUKL 33%, SNCF 62%, SNCB/NMBS 5% - ok, so LCR is
a partner through it's wholly owned subsidiary EUKL rather than a
direct partner in Eurostar Group Ltd, but that's just a technicality.


* And if, if neither the owner of the British Eurostar trainsets
(EUKL) nor the company which is the railway undertaking running those
trains on British soil (ICRR) are partners in Eurostar Group Ltd, on
what contractual basis can Eurostar Group Ltd interfere in the
business of EUKL and ICRR?

Read what I said! I did mention LCR.

In message
, at
21:21:01 on Wed, 25 Mar 2009, Lüko Willms
remarked:
Couldn't DB run the equivalent of an open-access operation, alongside a
renewed "franchise" for the UK Eurostar operations?

This is no franchise ....

ICRR sounds just like GNER running a franchise on the ECML.

If not, what's the essential difference.
--
Roland Perry