Great Britain’s 1st Highspeed Line (HS1)
A few years back I took the Eurostar from London to Brussels on my way to ITB, a tourism show in Berlin. We started from Waterloo station and meandered southward to Dover along the old “clickety-clack” track of the British rail system. Once we got near the entrance of the Channel Tunnel the ride suddenly smoothed and stayed that way to Berlin.
To explain this problem, I was told, you had to go back to the years after World War II. Britain was bankrupt and great quantities of its infrastructure lay in ruins for being the “Allied front lines.” Even when Europe was invaded the Nazi V1′s and V2′s still exploded into many areas. So coming from the wealthiest country in the world in 1914 to one of the poorest in the developed world in 1945 Britain had little spare money to spend on infrastructure which was “doing its job,” as a British journalist once said of the rails.
The past twenty years has brought a robust economy to Great Britain and with that a new high-speed rail system to link up with the European speedsters. The High Speed 1 began to service from London to Brussels on November 14th, 2007 running on a new rail system that rivals anything in the world. And with the addition of the Fawkham Junction to St Pancras section you can hop on the train in London and arrive in Paris 2 hours 15 minutes later and land in Brussels in1 hour and 51 minutes.
The inauguration of HS1 meant that Britain’s rail and terminal system was equal, if not better, than the French and Belgian LGV lines, meaning that trains could run at 186mph (300km/h) in Britain. This also means that up to 8 trains an hour can leave London for Europe.
As well, the opening of a reconditioned Pancras station takes over from Waterloo Station as the British terminal for Eurostar making train travel more advantageous and time-competitive than flying to Paris. It also makes getting around during the 2012 Olympics at Stratford much easier.
So, next year I’m ready for my next go at London and the Eurostar.
You provides great information by this article. If you are looking to travel from London to Paris or Brussels the cheap eurostar tickets starts from £69 return.
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