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Waiting times for Eurostar trains at London St Pancras could fall to as little as 15 minutes under a plan by the station owner to revamp the security and departure zones.
London St Pancras Highspeed — the company that operates the station and train line that connects with the Channel Tunnel — plans to spend £80mn to £100mn on the project to emulate the “turn up and go” experience offered by London City airport.
It wants to end the long queues and “holding pen” experience for passengers in an effort to encourage more people to travel by train to continental Europe.
“The capacity issue is clear to everyone, it is busy at peak [times], the lounge is not big enough, and you have people sitting on the floor, which is unacceptable,” Robert Sinclair, chief executive of London St Pancras Highspeed, told the Financial Times.
“At the moment, Eurostar asks customers to turn up 60 minutes before departure, sometimes an hour and a half. We both agree that the opportunity is to reduce that down to 15 minutes. We want it to be a ‘turn up and go’ service,” he added.
The centrepiece of the overhaul will involve turning the current queue lines sideways and extending them into the “empty arrivals hall”.
That would allow for double the number of passenger security checks, helping the overall queue times to be shortened, in a similar approach used during security checks by some airports.
“The speed of process is much faster in the airports than what we have in St Pancras, where we have short lanes that are highly congested,” said Sinclair, who previously ran London City airport.
“We have taken a leaf out of London City where you can turn up and go through very quickly. A bad outcome at London City is 10 minutes. If we offer that same level of consistency, then people over time will begin to rely on it.”
It would also allow passengers to board trains earlier, up to half an hour before departure instead of the current 10 to 15 minutes.
“The whole idea is not to hold people in a pen in a departure lounge,” he said. “If people turn up earlier, they can have a coffee in one of our coffee shops in St Pancras, and then wait to go through.”
“If they get there with only 30 minutes to go, they can go straight through and sit on the train. The train and carriages are effectively a boarding gate. We don’t plan to fill that departure lounge with retail; what we want is more passengers.”
The next phase of the plan, which involves detailed drawings of queue systems, had been approved by London St Pancras Highspeed’s board and would take place next year, he said. The entire process should be completed before Virgin Trains begins its own Channel Tunnel service at the end of this decade.
“We can complete this in four years. We will ensure we have capacity in place [before Virgin arrives],” he said. “We’re not building a new railway station here.”
Virgin this year won access to the Temple Mills rail depot, which will allow it to service cross-channel trains and begin offering an international service from London.
Eurostar has also outlined ambitions to extend its network, with routes to Cologne, Frankfurt and Geneva, and has an order for up to 50 trains.
Sinclair said St Pancras had ample capacity for both operators to run, with the main congestion being the security and departure areas.
Reducing queue times would help increase the appeal of rail travel to Europe, which he believed would win over environmentally conscious passengers who did not want to fly.
Under the current system, Eurostar contracts and pays for border security checks as the station’s “principal international operator”. Once Virgin services begin operating, the company will have to pay Eurostar to access this.
“Our working assumption [is Virgin will] want their own lounge and branding,” though St Pancras will operate a “common use area” like an airport where passengers are processed for any train, added Sinclair.