EUROSTAR, the train service that links the UK to the continent, has continued to attract more passengers in the third quarter despite a fire in the Channel Tunnel disrupting services.
The tunnel was closed on 10 September after a fire on a cargo train stranded thousands of passengers, causing services to be reduced – a reduction that is set to continue for months.
But despite the hit, Eurostar, which has the exclusive right to
operate passenger trains in the tunnel, said in the three months to 30 September it saw a 6.4 per cent rise in total passengers to 2.37 million.
Ticket sales during the same period rose 2.4 per cent to £152.3 million.
Richard Brown, chief executive of Eurostar, said the speed the company's trains and concerns over the environmental cost of flying were attracting new customers to the service.
"High-speed rail continues to attract more travellers," he said.
"Eurostar's good value fares, fast city-centre-to-city-centre journey times and enjoyable on-board experience are all reasons why people are switching to the train.
"Eurostar's growth in the third quarter is particularly encouraging given the incident in the Channel Tunnel and that the comparative three-month period in 2007 was boosted by the Rugby World Cup."
The disruption to services – the Eurostar is still offering only 93 per cent of its normal service – means the rate of growth has slowed compared with the first half of the year.
In the first nine months of the year, seven million travellers used Eurostar, a 13.9 per cent rise on the same period in 2007, with ticket sales rising 17.2 per cent to £521.1m.
The rise has been credited to the moving of the London terminus of the services from Waterloo International to King's Cross St Pancras last November.
As well as cutting journey times between London and the continent, the move has made the service more convenient for passengers living north of London, in particular those using the East Coast mainline, which terminates at London's Kings Cross.
Eurostar claims its services are also more punctual than flying, with Eurostar's punctuality in the first six months of the year averaging 92.6 per cent compared with an average of 64.8 per cent for airlines operating on the London to Paris and London to Brussels routes.
The company says its own punctuality was even higher in the third quarter, at 9.3 per cent, although the figure excludes cancelled services.
Brown said staff had done an "amazing" job to resume services as quickly as they had, although it he added it would be "some months" before the full service resumed.
The full article contains 458 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
