Currently, a new line is being built in England to match the high-speed rail lines used in the French and Belgian sections of the route. The Channel Tunnel Rail Link (CTRL) project, as it is called, is set to be completed in 2007.
In November of 1994, the first Eurostar trains opened to the public. Ten years later, the company had already established a dominant share of the market on the routes it serves - almost 70% for London-Paris and over 60% for London-Brussels travel. Eurostar points out that these passenger figures represent a saving of 393,000 carbon dioxide-producing short-haul flights.
The time it takes to travel from London to Paris (2h40m) and London to Brussels (2h20m)will be cut by 20 minutes when the construction of the second phase of CTRL is completed and the UK portion of the trip comes up to speed (no pun intended!) with the other portions of the journey.
Eurostar currently operates a fleet of 27 trains between the UK and France/Belgium. Eurostar trains are 400 metres long and is comprised of 18 passenger carriages and two power cars. There are 750 seats on each train, almost equivalent to the capacity levels of two 747 Boeing planes. Of the seats, 544 are in standard class and 206 in First Class.
In May of 2006, the stars of movie blockbuster "The Da Vinci Code" arrived at the Cannes Film Festival on board a Chunnel train that broke the world record for the longest nonstop international rail trip.
Tom Hanks and his fellow cast members set off from London on the Eurostar train to the Cannes Film Festival. Eurostar took the cast from Waterloo International terminal in the British capital to Cannes in the south of France. The journey of 883 miles (1,421 kilometers) qualified it for the Guinness Book of World Records.
In addition to the three destination cities, some Eurostar services currently stop en route at Ashford in Kent and at Calais Frethun and Lille in northern France.
Recently, studies have proven that the Eurostar is a much cleaner and ecofriendly means of travel, as opposed to flying (which emits 10 times the amount of C02)! Click here to read all about it.
