London to Paris in 135 minutes

It's been over ten years in the planning and cost over five billion pounds - and today the first Eurostar train made the journey between Paris and St Pancras station in central London.

The train left Paris at 9.44 UK time with around 400 guests on board and at 11:46 it arrived at St Pancras, which has replaced Waterloo station as Eurostar's terminal.

Travelling at speeds of up to 200 miles per hour, the journey took just two hours and 3 mins 39 seconds - setting a new record for rail travel between London and Paris, promising to cut London to Paris trip time by 20 minutes.

When the Eurostar was launched in 1994 the fastest journey took just under three hours. London to Brussels took three hours, 15 minutes.

Eurostar boss Richard Brown said: "Today marks Britain's entry into the European high-speed rail club. We can now run trains at high speed all the way from the Channel Tunnel to London, making journeys between cities quicker, more convenient - and far greener than flying.

"Eurostar will soon have two new stations, opening up European rail travel to millions more people across Britain.

"St Pancras International has numerous rail connections to towns and cities north and south of the capital, while Ebbsfleet International - just off junction 2 of the M25 and close to Bluewater shopping centre in Kent - is conveniently located for 10 million people across southern England."

Share this article

Send this article to a friend »

• Del.icio.us
• Digg
• Reddit
• Facebook
• StumbleUpon

What are these?