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A direct train to connect the wine capital to London?
This ambitious rail project, in the nails since 2018 but hampered by Brexit, could materialize.
It is in any case a New Year's resolution of the operator of the British high-speed line High Speed 1 (HS1), relayed by the
Times
of January 1st.
This “
wine train
” would make it possible to use part of the existing high-speed line between Paris and Bordeaux, explains Dyan Crowther, director of HS1, who confided to the British weekly his wish for this new link to be put into service. by 2026, to "
take advantage of users' desire to save money while reducing their greenhouse gas emissions
".
This new route is very well received by the environmental municipality.
"
All direct trains to European destinations, we are very much in favor of them
," says Brigitte Bloch, deputy municipal councilor for tourism and the wine economy.
The elected also specifies that a direct train between Bordeaux and Frankfurt will open during the summer, at the rate of one train per week on Saturday.
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According to calculations by Eurostar, the Franco-British operator of TGVs using the Channel Tunnel, the carbon footprint of a short-haul flight passenger is the equivalent of 13 high-speed train journeys.
Currently, more than one million travelers fly between London and Bordeaux each year.
"
More and more people are looking for alternatives to the plane
", underlines Brigitte Bloch, for whom the alternative by train is "
extremely virtuous
".
Increase in waiting at the border
This Sunday, HS1 services told
Sud Ouest
that they had been assessing "
for some time how to set up a new line from London to Bordeaux, which includes finalizing services and building a co-pricing model with the future operator
.
The operator specifies to the regional daily that “
a delivery schedule in 2026 is tight but would not be impossible
” and that the direct line between the two cities would take around five hours.
Other French destinations are also envisaged by HS1 by 2030 from London, in particular Marseille and Toulouse.
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But the path that remains to be traveled between now and then is strewn with pitfalls.
When a feasibility study was mooted in 2018, the UK was still part of the European Union.
In the columns of The
Times
, Dyan Crowther acknowledges that post-Brexit controls have increased transport time by around 15 seconds per passenger, due to passport stamping at the border, and reduced the maximum capacity of the station by 30%. of Saint Pancras.
A period which could lengthen with the forthcoming establishment of a generalized biometric control at the borders of the European Union.
Anticipating further slowdowns at the departure of trains, Dyan Crowther told the
Times
that he hoped for the agreement of the French government to authorize certain checks in a dematerialized way, before travelers go to the station.