Paul, another regular Ashford to Brussels passenger has been so incensed by an email he recently received from Eurostar that he sent us a copy of his reply to Eurostar’s customer service department. Read on…
Ré: You’re only 57 minutes from our new station at Ebbsfleet International…
Please can you forward this to the relevant person? I would appreciate a reply from the correct source.
Thank you very much for this information. However, it appears that you have completely missed the point with regard to Ebbsfleet and Ashford stations with regard to Kent users.
You point out that it takes 57 minutes to drive to Ebbsfleet. However, let us put this into actual context.
I usually catch the 0659 train to Brussels from Ashford. This arrives at 0940 and allows me to be at a meeting for 1000 or shortly after. A wonderful service. I leave home in Whitstable at 0550 for a gentle cross country drive of 25 minutes maximum with no traffic to Ashford (note the no traffic and the 25 minutes), this gives the required time to park and be in the terminal 30 minutes before.
At present there are no timetables for trains from Ebbsfleet. However it is a simple assumption that the train must take at least 10/15 minutes to travel between Ebbsfleet and Asford, so it may be expected that if a train is to arive in Brussels at 0940, it must be leaving Ebbsfleet at say 0645. Therefore I have to be at Ebbsfleet and parked by 0605, which will mean leaving home at 0505.
Traffic - has anyone from your organisation tried to leave Kent via the A2/M2 route in the morning. I do this regularly. Not withstanding the present roadworks (1/2 years), hopefully relieving the congestion when they are complete, the traffic stops around 2 miles short of the Ebbsfleet turnoff and crawls to the bottom of the hill below the Ebbsfleet turnoff. This occurs at any time from 0545 onwards in the mornings. Any further traffic caused by the Thames Gateway building project will only add to this.
So to be safe, to make sure that I catch a train scheduled to leave at 0645, I will probably have to leave home at 0450. A full hour before I leave now, doing a day’s work in Brussels and then an hour’s drive home.
It almost makes more sense for me to use Eurotunnel and drive - I won’t go through the maths.
So please think it through before emailing me with information, such that I am only 57 minutes from Ebbsfleet, to catch a train, that will by definition have to leave earlier to arrive at the same time, pointing out that I have to leave home an hour earlier than I have to now. I am only 25 minutes from Ashford with no traffic problems.
I do hope that there is no plan to change the Brussels train arrival time.
In the light of the above I would strongly recommend the re-instatement of a stop at Ashford for the Brussels train - I do not understand why a five minute stop with the associated five minutes of decelleration and acceleration causes problems with either journey time or energy usage.
I wonder when you will be closing your new Stratford staion to make these savings, after all it is only 73 miles from Ebbsfleet with a journey time of 71 minutes……. Excuse my irony but perhaps it helps to make the point.
Regards
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