Lost Battle of Waterloo

Eurostar is counting down to the launch of its new terminal at St Pancras on November 18. As I write there are - according to the website - just 19 days 9 hours and 23 minutes to go. I wish that clock would stop. I can wait. I do not mind staying on the train to Waterloo even if it takes 15 minutes or even an hour longer.

Forgive me for not cracking open the bubbly. Call me selfish but redirecting the Eurostar to ‘St Pancras International’ is not a cause for celebration as far as I am concerned, however big or bright or beautiful the new station is and despite it having 'The Longest Champagne Bar in Europe'.

Right now I can do Paris to London door-to-door with literally no sweat, even with baggage, pushchair and a toddler insisting I carry her and her Dora the Explorer backpack. From November 18, I will have to cart the above across or under the whole of Central London. I am so depressed and in denial about this I have not yet bothered to work out how it can be done apart from stumping up a small fortune for a taxi. I fear I will be forced underground into that particular circle of hell, the Northern Line, or the awful Victoria Line. On a recent trip, realising I needed to face reality, I asked a Eurostar person how I could get from St Pancras to south London. She looked at me blankly and said it was “up to passengers to make their own way to and from the Eurostar”. Very helpful. Another Eurostar employee said he thought “British Rail” (does it still exist?) was planning a link from St Pancras to the south and south west. He added it would not be built for several years. "If ever," I thought.

Part of the thinking behind putting the Eurostar terminal in north London – the opposite side of the city to the nearest point of France – is to give visitors access to the north of England. The Eurostar website boasts “London and Beyond”, vaunting the accessibility of Rugby, Leicester, Peterborough, Luton and Cambridge. I have nothing against these places, but I would venture a bet that the majority of people on a London-bound Eurostar are going to London to see London. The majority, I said, not all. A large number of passengers are either on business and their business is in London – otherwise surely they would fly – or they are tourists. Tourists may want to visit the north, south, east and west extremes of England, not to mention Wales, Scotland and Ireland, and why not? But most will do so after they have ‘done’ London. I have had countless conversations on Eurostar trains in the last few years and I have yet to meet anyone planning to leap off and immediately head north. As for St Pancras being easier for those in the north wanting to get to France, no-frills airlines are even easier and cheaper.

In Paris, there is a logic to the location of railway stations: trains from the Gare du Nord go, you guessed, north; trains from the Gare de l’Est, east; from the Gare de Lyon, south and from Gare St-Lazare, west. Why, when some Eurostar trains stop at Calais, some stop at Lille, some stop at Ashford and some are going to stop at a new station in Kent called Ebbsfleet as well, is it not possible for some Eurostar trains, just one or two, to stop at Waterloo?

The very thought of struggling across London with that Dora the Explorer rucksack – the last straw - makes me want to lie down exhausted. Why I am ranting when I should be saving my breath?

It is now 19 days 7 hours 55 minutes and counting.

First Impressions

Over dinner, I ask the Frenchman what he thinks are the main differences between Paris and London. It is not a fair question as we have only been in the UK a few hours - this time - but I want a first impression.

As soon as I ask, I wish I had not. Usually, when faced with this sort of question, his response is either infuriatingly ponderous or “je ne sais pas” which, I tell him, is the lazy option. In any case, this sort of question invariably provokes a row. Harsh words are averted, however, because this time he has already thought about it. He ponders aloud on the considerable number of station staff he noticed at Waterloo, which he says compares extremely favourably with the Gare du Nord where the queues are long and slow and half the ticket machines are more often than not out of order. He said it, not me.

He points out that at Waterloo there were ticket office people behind counter and staff with ticket machines slung around their necks, like old fashioned bus conductors without the bus, on the station concourse. There were also several other uniformed chaps – on this particular day they were ALL male - hanging around to chivvy passengers at the automatic ticket machines supposed to replace them. (I find their presence reassuring, as it tends to silence the grumblers behind when I am faffing over what button to press and trying to pay with my French supermarket loyalty card.) He ponders further and declares this must be the secret of Britain’s relatively low unemployment. I tell him they may have jobs but they are probably precarious and low paid ones, unlike in France, but I am secretly pleased he has something positive to say.

He also remarks that:

a) The train was new, almost empty despite it being rush hour, on time and had helpful guards. This is not the image of London’s transport system we Brits have.

b) Nearly everyone was reading a newspaper or magazine compared to almost nobody on a Parisian metro or suburban train.

c) Nobody assaulted us with tunes from raddled accordion or rattled off their life’s tragedy in expectation of a coin, cigarette or a luncheon voucher.

d) Complete strangers, who did not appear to be barking mad, talked to us. The fact they were talking about the weather did not bother him or seem evidence of a certain British madness.