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I too have elderly parents who live in Kent (Maidstone), so Ashford is the logical destination for me. I’m behind this campaign all the way.

What I can’t understand is that Paris trains WILL stop..have I interpreted that right? If so, then using Ashford Station for only half it’s normal traffic will not solve Eurostar’s problem. They will then have to stop using the station and it becomes a white elephant. Maybe singing it’s praises as a place to leave one’s car - at good rates and to do away with the congestion around and in London might encourage people to use it. I am sure Ashford itself would cough up some of the advertising money. Hotel prices must be cheaper too if an early start is required? A stop only takes five minutes, so more frequent stops might help? I had a day in London yesterday, and my train stopped both ways as it happened. Audrey Osterlyng, Brussels

As a person who is disabled and has to use an electric wheelchair to travel about, and who relies on public transport, travelling to Ebbsfleet will be a lot more time consuming, probably about an hour providing the connecting buses wheelchair bay is empty, if not a lot longer. Using St Pancras for me is unthinkable in that I would have to cross London on a bus during rush hour.

Ashford is so much easier for Disabled people with its direct rail links from many places in the South East, as in my case from Margate.

Having seen the new timetable, I don’t think I’ll be using Eurostar for my trips again.

Have we lost the fight?

I think your blog is excellent. It appears to confirm what we all thought would happen, but Eurostar refused to believe: Ebbsfleet is bombing.

Here in Bexhill, we have even fewer options than most of Kent, with a slow rail service to London and the A21 ’snail trail’ for those who want the stress of going by car to Ebbsfleet [allow at least an hour and a half and pay £11.50 a day for the privilege of parking there]. The coastal rail link from Brighton to Ashford was our one easy link with the continent. Southern are still up for a deal for free travel to Ashford, but the word is that Eurostar aren’t interested

Test bookings on the few remaining Paris trains out of Ashford reveal very few affordable fares. As for travel to Belgium, one may as well just take the car across on the ferry/Chunnel than mess around trying to book a through ticket, let alone experience all the shenanigans at Lille. And for onward travel to Germany or the Netherlands, it’s back to Gatwick or even Stansted.

I love the Eurostar experience, but what a useless company is Eurostar UK

Just wanted to clear one thing up: Richard Brown, CEO of Eurostar - is he the same chap that caused a furore at British Gas a few years ago?

For information about the campaign for better services in the Bexhill area, please see www.bexhillrailaction.org.uk

We’ll certainly add your website to our links next time we update our website

Test bookings on the Eurostar website as far ahead as June produce very few cheap seats on the sole daily train to/from Lille. In contrast, availability from Ebbsfleet is not a problem. Is this another attempt by ‘Eurostar Airways’ to close Ashford by stealth, by pricing out potential users?

I used to catch an early Eurostar train to Paris to get a connection on to Clermont Ferrand. The timings of the connections, leaving time to cross Paris were excellent and I could do the whole journey in good time and arrive in the Auvergne at a reasonable time of day. Likewise returning home was quite an easy process, using the rail link from Polegate. Now the timings are really difficult and I cannot get a train home from Clermont until 1.30 p.m. (if I book through eurostar) which makes arrival back in Ashford really late and onward to Polegate even later. The last time I tried this I missed my connection when eurostar was late in. I have managed to book direct with SNCF in France to get an earlier train but the time between the Paris stations is really tight and doesnt allow for delays! The experience is now tiring and no longer the pleasure it was. Travelling to the Auvergne is difficult with no direct flights from the SEast to Clermont Ferrand from Gatwick nor I believe any other airport. The only other option is to drive all the way, not a task I could undertake on my own. I really hope pressure can be put on eurostar to reinstate trains from Ashford. This is not a service which is practical for me to use any longer.

Please see link to Eurostar press release below

http://www.eurostar.com/UK/uk/leisure/about_eurostar/press_release/As_if_by_magic_Eurostar_introduces_extra_direct_services_to_Disneyland_resort_paris_for_the_summer.jsp

It is a little bizarre that Eurostar sees strong demand to go from Ashford to Euro Disney and has responded to this, but has not budged on providing a service to Brussels. Nonetheless, the significance of this announcement is that these new services are to run in the middle of the day, so Eurostar will have to fully staff Ashford International station at these times, rather than simply in the morning and evening at present. Perhaps this signifies the beginning of a climbdown?

I hail from Romney Marsh and have lived in Brussels 32 years. So all my friends and family from Kent were in the habit of taking the Eurostar from Ashford.

My brother had a nightmare trip via Ebbsfleet when he came to visit me at Christmas. It took him 9 hours. The bus never showed up to take him across to Ebbsfleet and he had to take a taxi which cost him even more money (£25). The taximan then promptly got lost and with nobody much to ask the way, they took a scenic itinerary into Ebbsfleet. Terrific amount of traipsing up and down stairs with heavy luggage (full of cheddar for me!). Our elderly mum would not manage it at all. In any case too expensive for her pension.

He came over again just recently - in his car on a £14 ticket Norfolk lines Dover to Dunkerque. The crossing took 3/4 hour more Dover to Calais, but he relaxed in the lounge (instead of sweating his way around London/Ebbsfleet spending money on Eurostar’s economy cuts) - cheddar well stocked in his boot.

So, in future its Norfolk Lines for us all. Count that one up Eurostar. And I have spread the publicity across Brussels.

As for the vulgar publicity campaign. Is this what it is like in Britain now? Do people really find these kind of ads cool-Raoul? Or is it just a reflection of the Eurostar management - rather thick and totally out of touch with what the people want. I cannot understand why our police force has not complained. As for the one with the Queen doing a Marilyn Monroe…perlease!!!

Karen C.
Waterloo, BE

I have to say I detect the duff-hand of SNCF, the state-owned French Railways behind all of this. SNCF more-or-less owns Eurostar now and calls all the shots. Guillaume Pepy, the ‘President’ of SNCF is Chairman of Eurostar. Look at the current Eurostar timetable from Ashford, and it is a similar story up and down France. Although the TGVs between the large cities are excellent, and this is what the outside world sees, services on the secondary and rural lines are rubbish. The average town in France has three or four trains a day, which run only when SNCF can be bothered to operate them. Even mainlines such as Boulogne - Paris only have five trains a day each way, with long gaps in the timetable of several hours with no trains at all. If it were the UK, or Belgium or Germany, there would be a train every hour or two. For example, the branchline from Ashford to Hastings via Rye has a train every hour, which even runs on to Brighton. A similar line running along the coast from Calais to Dunkirk via Gravelines has only three trains a day. In France, if you want to go anywhere else other than where they run to, or at any other time of day, and you don’t want to go to or via Paris: Tough. It’s the most producer-led railway in Europe.

Victory! On 31st July, Eurostar announced that from 14th December it would re-instate a daily through service between Ashford and Brussels. In the opposite direction, the service from Brussels to Ashford will run daily except on Saturdays. Hopefully this will go a long way to restore goodwill locally towards the company, and Eurostar will add additional services over time

The outbound service will leave Ashford at 06.27 on Mondays to Fridays [later at weekends], arriving in Brussels before 9am. While it is understood that Eurostar have to capture the crucial business market, the only drawback to this is that this is currently too early for many rail connections.

The first train from Hastings doesn’t arrive into Ashford until 6.15am, way past the closure time for check-in. Bexhill Rail Group has contacted our local train operator ‘Southern’ to request an earlier service from Eastbourne via Hastings and Rye, with an arrival time of approximately 05.50. We shall see

Assuming there are no major changes to the current Southeastern timetable, stations between Tonbridge and Ashford fare better, with the 04.53 from Tonbridge arriving at Ashford by 05.29. Dover and Folkestone also have a connection arriving at 05.23. From Ramsgate there is a connection via Dover arriving at 05.57, the exact moment check-in closes; while passengers from Margate, Canterbury West and Maidstone can’t arrive by train at Ashford until well -after check-in closes

Hello - I sent this email to Eurostar yesterday -

“FAO Marc Noaro, Customer Service Director.

Dear Mr Noaro,

My wife & I are regular Eurostar travellers, travelling to Paris or Brussels at least once per annum and to Avignon four times now. We are really keen on the Avignon service and I continually recommend it to friends. So I hope you can see that we are not the sort of customers you would wish to antagonise.

Four years ago we drove to Ashford to catch the Avignon train & decided to do the same this year. I noticed that on your web site the weekly ticket for parking at Ashford is £69. This represented an annual increase of 6% on the £54 we paid four years ago & seemed a bit steep but we decided to go ahead none the less. However on returning to Ashford on the evening of September 6th we were shocked to find that price wasn’t £69, but £80.50!!! This is an annual increase of 10%. What has happened of course is that you deem “weekly” to mean a week of 168 hours, anything over that and you have to pay an additional day. However, as you must realise, the weekly service to/from Avignon goes in the morning & comes back in the evening. As such I think it is sharp practice to charge the Avignon passengers for an extra day.

It would be much appreciated if you would refund me the additional cost of £11.50.

Regards,”

Today I received this reply -

“Thank you for your comments. While I sincerely apologise for the difficulties you experienced with the parking facilities at Ashford, I am afraid I cannot accede to your request for a refund. The parking services offered at Ashford are complementary to the Eurostar service and are therefore operated by independent companies. In this case the parking facilities are operated by NCP. I can confirm that they would be the most appropriate place to direct your complaint towards.

I am sorry I cannot be of any further assistance, please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any further questions.

Sincerely”

So Eurostar have effectively washed their hands of the carparking arrangements, even although the prices are listed on their website & the ticket machines are on their premises. I intend taking this further but wonder if any other people have had concerns re this car park.

Regards,

Gordon Dow.

Brussels-Ashford-Brussels “service”

As you will know if you are a (former) Ashford-Brussels user, a limited number of such journeys (direct) were reinstated by Eurostar on 23 February. However, actually booking these journeys proves very difficult. At present it seems to be impossible to do so online, either on the Belgian (SNCB) booking website or on the UK official Eurostar site.

Below is a description of my thwarted attempts (on 24th February) on both sites.

Belgian end (SNCB booking website):
If you go to the Eurostar part of this website and ask for timetables, you are presented not with a time table but with a set of search dialogue boxes (requested times, dates, places etc). When you fill this in with Bruxelles-Midi and Ashford International, it tells you that the search for Ashford International is “ambiguous” and offers you Harwich International or Ashford in Surrey.

If on the other hand you go direct to “book a ticket” and fill in the journey dates, times and places of departure and destination (which I know both from the ticket I successfully booked and the pdf timetable available (in tiny print) on the UK Eurostar website it tells you that sorry, no such journey is available.

UK end (official Eurostar website)

Here too, if you go to timetables you are asked to search specific data rather than being presented with a timetable, and the same search produces no hits. Rather inconspicuously available on the screen at certain points is a link to a pdf timetable for all Eurostar journeys. This prints out in tiny format, very hard to read, but it is clear on screen that the trains do exists.

However, if you got to book a ticket, you are again told that no such journey is available.

I have heard from other UK-based passengers of going to the Ashford International Station itself and being told that the entire computer system had crashed. Apparently in the UK telephone bookings are available only for an extra charge.

If you have had similar experiences do let me know AND complain to Eurostar and anyone else who might publicise the facts.

I’d like to register my support for your initiative. I live near Tonbridge and in the past have travelled to Ashford to catch the Eurostar onwards. Recently, I was going to France and found that none of the bargain fares on offer included an Ashford stop. So I ended up travelling to & from St Pancras; Ebbsfleet was an option one way, but add the lack of any PT option to get there, terrible traffic on the M25 & steep parking charges at Ebbsfleet it was a non runner.
Had I been going anywhere in France near an Airport, the extra travel time [& cost] through not having an option to change at Ashford onto Eurostar would have meant flying there was a much better choice.

Bah humbug
Over the run up to Christmas Eurostar were responsible for keeping families apart.
Our family was held apart, because to take the pressure off me my husband had decided to travel to Brussels over the run up to Christmas. As you are all aware trains were canceled on the the weekend of the 20th but my husband drove all the way back from Lancashire on the understanding from the management at Eurostar that the train to Brussels would leave on Saturday afternoon. As they have taken our frequent traveler away it is now cheaper to get a taxi and travel by rail and underground to St Pancras. Having gone to all this effort in horrific weather the trip did not take place and I spent the weekend alone in Brussels. All Eurostar had to do was consider the passenger but we were unable to get anyone on the phone nor any information. Time with families is precious. Give us our frequent traveler parking back at Ashford and let’s stop wasting time driving up to St Pancras because it takes less time than getting to Ebsfleet and leaving the car in the ice and snow.
I encouraged a widow friend of my family to bring her 3 children 7, 8, 11 over from South Africa and spend a little time healing over their first Christmas without dad. They landed in Paris to be greeted with the news that the Eurostar would not be running to Disneyland Paris. Compensation would be paid and they could make alternate arrangements to get to the UK. They finally landed by plane in Bristol after spending days trying to board the Eurostar from Paris.
In this saga we are all aware of the problems encountered by the trains. The lack of information and compassion for people that are just trying to be together for their holidays is just shocking. We still await a personal response having given them our money.

I am somewhat taken aback to see the notice (see below) on the timetables page of the Eurostar website. Our direct morning service to Brussels no longer departs at 06.27.

I do feel it rather important that Eurostar gives its prospective customers the correct information as they might not bother applying for tickets if they feel the hour is too early.

Once more, Eurostar are showing to the world that Ashford is the poor relation because they cannot apparently get their own timetable correct.

Edith Robson

“We are delighted to offer a direct service between Ashford International and Brussels Midi. It departs Ashford International on weekdays at 06.27 and leaves Brussels Midi (weekdays and Sundays) at 16.59. At weekends the departure times from Ashford International are 08.28 (Saturday) and 18.55 (Sunday). There is no service from Brussels Midi to Ashford International on Saturdays. When booking, please enter either the approximate hour of departure or relevant period of the day”

http://www.eurostar.com/dynamic/_SvBoTimeTableCriteriaTerm?_TMS=1264573481767&_DLG=SvBoTimeTableCriteriaTerm&_LANG=UK&_AGENCY=ESTAR

I was not involved in any of the broken down trains but our lives were changed by the service disruptions.

Once again Ashford station came to the rescue and was used by hundreds of people as an interchange to domestic train services and by buses taking travellers to the ferries at Dover. But why were there were no services between Ashford and Brussels between the Monday and Thursday before Christmas?

Frequent travellers, like many others, were not able to catch their only Eurostar and the roads were not safe to drive on. Who thought up the brilliant notion of advising passengers to DRIVE in such conditions to Ebbsfleet? Why were all trains not stopping at every station to maximise customer service? Why cannot Eurostar advise its frequent travellers of the arrangements that are being made as they have all of their email addresses?

Nor would it seem that the Eurostar website was updated during the incident. Surely this is essential for the company to have any credibility. Even now, I am not sure who, if anyone, is receiving a relevant response to their emails. I have had the same blurb twice. It is obviously being generated automatically and tells me how to claim compensation for the debacle in December even though that is irrelevant to my query.

It would appear that Ashford is only used when Eurostar gets into trouble, and the staff there responds magnificently. However, in terms of providing a train service, building up the business and looking after their frequent traveller customers Eurostar is just not in touch.

Last time my husband returned on the 16:59 from Brussels to Ashford he had to check in manually and was told that if he had not arrived early he might not have got on the train in spite of having a valid ticket because two trains were being combined into one. This is a computer age. Why can emergency tickets not be generated for the unbooked seats on the train which is running? He has also received an email from Richard Brown telling him that in future they will operate an emergency timetable but has found no details of this on the website.

Ashford staff are committed in a way that seems to be totally lacking in the theoreticians who sit in ivory towers and pontificate. What we need from the company is people with practical knowledge, who don’t bury their head in the snow (sic) but who do have an understanding of passengers’ needs.
We, the passengers are people, not just a booking number.

Eurostar travails 2010-01

My husband was left in Brussels on 11th January as Eurostar have developed a bad habit of just cancelling a train and not bothering to send out blanket emails to the frequent travellers. He was too late for his appointment in London and we again have an unused SWT train ticket that has a minimum refund admin amount of £10.00.

We have tried to get SWT customer service but they are proving illusive. They have to be aware that this is gong on and Virgin online will no doubt have to pay monies collected by them to SWT. I have quite a collection of these unused tickets and Eurostar are not interested.

Thankfully I could accommodate him in Brussels and as we were scheduled to meet friends for dinner on Friday after work, booked onto the earlier 15:59 15/01 train. No surprise that the 15:59 was cancelled and we were put on the next available train. Our friends agreed to wait in a freezing cold London St Pancras no compensation for their unexpected costs.

Still no reason why and the “Customer Service” person in Brussels was being difficult about seating us together near the front of the train. As it happened the seat on the aisle was never allocated to anyone so hubby sat next to me.

Had they left our Carte Blanche parking alone we could make a single trip to Ashford and driven back on a Friday evening and not had to cover the SWT cost at all.

It is the pure bad manners of this company that really palls and makes me want to raid the college fund to pay to fly.

Let our children sort out the ozone I don’t want to travel green and abused.

EuroHalfStar
Despite 15th February’s terrible crash we arrived in Brussels at 13:30 having set off from London at 7:30 thanks to the steps put in place by the management of Eurostar and SNCB.
Those who wished to be returned to London were immediately notified on the announcement to stay on the train and those wishing to proceed to Brussels to alight on the platform.
We were on the platform for roughly 5 minutes, unable to get up to the concourse and we were all advised to get back on the train for our comfort.
It was possibly freezing in Lille as it was snowing quite heavily outside. After another half an hour they announced that the passengers who had decided to return to London should present themselves at customs.

Not so great were the absence of staff, who mysteriously evaporated and it was left to the bus company to walk through each of the train carriages to inform the waiting passengers to go up to the top of Lille Station (?) turn left and find the buses but only in French.

It seems the Eurostar disorganisation is still relying on other passengers to pass on to other passengers what to do. As it was snowing some elderly passengers were finding it really treacherous going but all that I viewed made it onto the coach however slowly. When we arrived at South Station we were some distance from the the station, due to the huge number of buses and taxis. The coach driver said nothing, just left the bus running and went to have a cigarette. At this point the passengers alighted.

No Eurostar representatives to meet the bus, to inform passengers where to find the platforms or actual station. I walked into the terminal and informed a clearly identifiable staff member that this could disintegrate into chaos, if they did not send someone out into the snow. He immediately called someone on his phone.

It did feel in the beginning like this was a new way of behaving given the 89 page release of the damming report on Friday.
So it does seem churlish to complain a day later, but they do need to get this sorted as urgently as possible.

Eurostar have made a half hearted attempt at releasing the new calendar from 23rd February.
Of course the 9108 which us early birds are booked on is not in the timetable.
It is left for the hapless customer or potential passenger to presume that the tickets and seat allocation will be honoured on the 9106 at 5:53 or 5:57

There is reference to the seats available at £59.00 which we can only dream about.
A number of the frequent travellers are celebrating that after almost 10 years
they are leaving Brussels because this is one more hike they do not want to carry coupled with the last 18 months of misery.