Eurostar brings Paris closer to Yorkshire

THE first Eurostar passenger services to Paris and Brussels from
St Pancras International are due to begin this morning.

A special carbon-neutral train will carry the new route's
first passengers shortly after the London station opens following
an £800m reconstruction.

St Pancras is due to open its doors at 9am and the first service
– the “Green Eurostar”, bound for Paris – will leave at
11.01am.

It will mean Yorkshire travellers being able to reach Paris in
around five hours. Services from Leeds, York and Doncaster arrive
at neighbouring Kings Cross Station while Midland Mainline, which
serves Sheffield, arrive at St Pancras.

The new route will cut journey times to Paris by 20 minutes to
two hours and 15 minutes, and to Brussels by 25 minutes to one. If
Yorkshire travellers time their arrivals and departures right, they
can leave home in the morning and be in the French capital in time
for lunch.

Work on the station began in 2001 to enable it to accommodate
Eurostar trains as well as Midland Mainline services, Thameslink
and high-speed commuter services to Kent.

The brick and stonework has been cleaned and the station's
majestic roof reglazed with 18,000 panes of self-cleaning glass and
repainted in its original light blue.

St Pancras will house upmarket shops and what its operators say
is the longest champagne bar in Europe. The elaborate gothic hotel
at the front of the station, vacant since the 1980s, will open as a
five-star hotel and apartments in 2009.

The new route will cut journey times to Paris by 20 minutes to
two hours and 15 minutes, and to Brussels by 25 minutes to one hour
and 51 minutes.

The rail minister Tom Harris said the rise of low cost airlines
had not made high speed rail travel redundant.

“I think people will vote with their feet,” he
said.