I'm back 😃
Following on from the last post about the 400 Series Shinkansen, or Tomica World 4764 'Bullet Train', and how in the real world, it and the Mini-Shinkansen concept would become the basis for both Britain's fastest domestic railway service, and the replacement fleet for much of the original HST/Inter-City 125 fleet [see OP on the Virgin Train for more information on the HST], we come to the final third of the British railway story, as it pertains to Tomica World.
[Note, this story will be fairly long, but that's not my fault - Because in Britain we have a great habit of managing massive critical infrastructure projects, especially modern railways in incredibly complicated ways 'cough' Crossrail 'cough', the Eurostar story has to be one of the finest examples of what happens when you try to engineer a railway connecting 2 different sets of railway standards, while also adapting to Britain's then underfunded and antiquated rail system, and also cater to the whims of politicians & businessmen who never totally realised the implications of modern international railway operations. Please bear with me :angel: ]
Tomica World 7466 'Eurostar' is exactly as the name implies; It is a model of the Eurostar international express train that connects Britain to Continental Europe. It does hold a significance, being the only model of a British train [technically, as the train's design was a co-operation between Britain and France, and it of course operated in Britain] to also be released in the Japanese Plarail line of the time, being seen in catalogues and promotional material for both Plarail and Tomica World. Indeed, like the Virgin Train, it recieved special promotional attention for Tomica World's UK release, as the Channel Tunnel was at the time a fairly new operation, having opened for business in 1994 to great fanfare. That said, Tomy had already made a celebratory semi-Plarail model for the tunnel project in the Tomy Trains line, but more on that later.
The train itself goes by a large number of designations. In Britain, it is officially the British Rail Class 373, in France the TGV-TMST [Trans-Manche SuperTrain/Cross-Channel SuperTrain], and is also marketed by Eurostar [the operating company] themselves as the Eurostar e300.
But, what exactly led to the development of this train, and why was it deemed significant enough not just for a European release, but a Japanese release too, unlike it's fellow British model the Virgin Train?
To find out, we need to go back to a time long before the development of express railways, or even railways as we really know them.
The year is 1802, and French engineer Albert Mathieu-Favier, discussed what would have been the greatest engineering challenge of the age. They wanted to create a tunnel underneath the English Channel, the sea channel dividing the island of Great Britain and continental Europe. This would have been achieved by quite literal manpower, with huge mining crews manually carving a tunnel through the seabed, also building a man-made island in the middle as a staging-point for horses to be changed, as yes, they planned this to be a road tunnel for horse-drawn carriages to pass through.
Unsurprisingly, this never happened, as the engineering involved would not have been necessarily impossible, but certainly impractical with the technology of the day. Indeed, there were 2 major obstacles barring any further attempts down the line, engineering constraints, and world politics. Attempts in the Victorian era where construction began were halted when financial and political issues made the project untenable [a running theme], while World War 2 saw Winston Churchill become a key proponent for a tunnel on the UK side, alongside fears that the Nazi forces could have the capabilities to dig a tunnel using slave labor from the concentration camps in around 18 months, allowing them to invade Britain via their occupied territory in France.
Fortunately, no invasion would come to pass, and by the 1960's, any political objections were more or less moot, so the final hurdle was trying to get the tunnel built and funded, since both France and the UK agreed it was probably a pretty decent idea, and could become a key economic boost for both countries, thanks to it making trade and tourism more efficient and accessible, so an agreement was signed to develop the tunnel in 1964.
It was understood that the tunnel would run across the shortest stretch of the English Channel [from coast-to-coast] for the sake of simplicity, and also for the fact that this would position the new link alongside the largest existing link across the channel, that being the Dover-Calais shipping corridor. This location was chosen for virtually all tunnel proposals from the very beginning, although it would mean that the UK terminal/portal would need to be some way inland to allow enough distance for the tunnel to rise up to ground level, as the area around Dover and along a large portion of the South East's coastline consists mainly of high chalk cliffs [the famed 'White Cliffs'].
By this point, the project plans had become more or less what we know it today, that being a pair of rail tunnels with a central service corridor, with the train service being a mix of standard passenger, container freight, and vehicle shuttle trains, almost exactly the same as what operates today. Due to the tunnel's British portal falling in what would have been the former territory of the pre-nationalisation 'Big Four' Southern Railway [also known as the S.R, not to be confused with the current post-privatization Southern Railways], the British Transport Commission [a part of the UK Government] who acted as the formal owners of British Rail, the S.R's direct successor, made a 30% investment in the project via the 'Channel Tunnel Co.'.
This was sufficiently advanced that construction began in 1974, only for the entire project to then be cancelled by the UK Labour Party in 1975 due to financial concerns, as well as the UK's aborted attempt to enter the EEC [latterly, the EU], which subsequently saw the French parties pull out too, leaving part-built tunnel sections on both sides; This was also in addition to abandoned workings from a Victorian tunnel under Shakespeare Cliff near Folkestone in Kent, which were discovered when the project was later revived.
So, with 2 abandoned tunnels and seemingly no political will to press ahead, the tunnel seemed doomed, for now at least.
Except it wasn't. Love her or hate her, Baroness Margaret Thatcher was a 1980's icon for the UK, as her Conservative government managed to attract significant support, as well as significant ire during their tenure in power, and even up to the present day, where her legacy is still hotly debated. Under Thatcher, the idea was revived, but like much of Thatcher's thinking, private enterprise was seen as the way forward, so the entire contract was put out to tender, meaning that anyone willing enough to develop a concept for a Channel Tunnel in whatever form they saw fit could propose their idea for approval by both the UK and France, then build the thing, and charge for it's use as a for-profit, as opposed to state-owned venture.
This led to some incredibly wacky ideas for how the tunnel could be achieved, which deviated significantly from the 1974 plan. One, Channel Expressway called for a motorway tunnel entirely under the sea, another, Eurobridge was an above-ground road tunnel tube suspended by suspension-bridge style towers across the Channel, and finally, Euroroute was kind of halfway between the two, reviving a form of the Mathieu-Favier proposal of 1802 by proposing bridges from the land to artificial islands in the Channel, which would contain rest stops/service stations for drivers and ramps down into the middle section, which would be a tunnel, allowing for an unobstructed shipping lane to remain in between the bridges.
However, the proposal chosen was that of 'EuroTunnel', which was quite simply, the 1974 railway plan, but with slight revisions. Incidentally, some objections to the plan were raised by the cross-channel ferry industry, which included Sealink and Hoverspeed, both of whom were former divisions of British Rail, divested at Thatcher's behest to try and make B.R more efficient. This situation was a hangover from a time when most of the UK's seaports were owned by the railways, and subsequently became B.R's responsibility upon nationalisation. Cross-Channel service was run in conjunction with the French state railways, SNCF, who would continue to run ferries under the name SeaFrance until 2012, when the services were bought by none other than Eurotunnel, but I'm getting a little ahead of myself here.
As EuroTunnel was taken forward, several companies were formed to oversee the project, which began construction in 1988. The construction and financing were handled seperately by two companies, although both were legally linked; TransManche Link [TML] for construction, and Eurotunnel for financing and eventual operation. The plan was simple, Eurotunnel would attract investors, TML would build the thing, then Eurotunnel would take over and operate the entire system, including most importantly, the proposed railway shuttle service for vehicles, which would be one of the the main sources of income for the project upon completion, aside from tolls charged to railway operators who wished to run trains through the tunnel, which itself would prove to be a daunting feat that put many operators off.
At last the tunnel was successfully implemented, with the entire project opening for business in 1994, becoming the world's second [now third] longest tunnel, at around 31 miles long. It still holds the current world record for the longest undersea tunnel section, with 24 miles of the tunnel under the sea.
The 3 key services to use the tunnel included shuttles, freight trains, and the all-new Eurostar express service. Shuttles were extra-large trains hauled by custom Eurotunnel Class 0009 locomotives that could carry vehicles from a terminal at Folkestone to a terminal at Calais [this would become a Tomy set of it's own, the Tomy Trains 'Le Shuttle' set featuring a re-painted HST and cardboard Channel Tunnel], freight trains which used the special British Rail Class 92 engine, built especially for the purposes of Cross-Channel freight and passenger service, and of course, the TGV-TMST/Class 373/Eurostar for express services via the French TGV system.
All seemed to be in order, but there were several snags that would plague the Eurostar side of the system right into the new millenium. However, to understand how these came about, it is best to look at the Eurostar itself, and what it was built for, as it was the lofty goals planned for this special train, that caused the hardest fall in service.
The technical name Trans-Manche Super Train was not just a cool sounding title. They meant it. This train was designed to be the universal TGV, compatible with all the British railway network's electrical systems, and all those it would encounter in France & Belgium too. Put simply, this was to be the most advanced and versatile TGV yet devised. However, it also had to meet the requirements set by Eurotunnel themselves, as Eurotunnel owned the Channel Tunnel and were therefore able to make their own rules regarding what could use the tunnel. These rules were incredibly stringent, as they included the requirement for all trains to be able to be split in half should an emergency occur, as well as the need for significant amounts of fireproofing, but of course, the TMST had both.
The 'half-train' rule and fireproofing was the most testing, as this generally meant that any design of train used would need 2 locomotives, and so the TMST had just that, a locomotive on each end, and the ability to be split in 2 and driven from the middle if needed. This also meant that any other passenger services would need to meet the same stringent requirements if they wished to operate services, and with few elements of existing British or French rolling stock meeting the standards, this meant all passenger operators had to order customised rolling stock especially for the tunnel, effectively rendering plans for general rail usage of the tunnel as nearly impossible due to the cost of custom stock. This issue persists to this day, with Eurostar and Eurotunnel holding a monopoly on passenger service in the tunnel thanks to the complexity needed in the rolling stock making it difficult for other operators to consider service.
Nevertheless, with a top speed of 180mph, the train was a formidable piece of engineering, and with 20 coaches on the 'Three Capitals' sub-class and 16 on the 'North of London' sets, was the longest and fastest train in Britain at the time, maintaining this accolade until it's replacement, the British Rail Class 374/Siemens Velaro/Eurostar e320 entered service.
As you will have spotted, there were two variations of the Eurostar, 'Three Capitals' and 'North of London'. This is where the complicated part comes into play [if it wasn't complicated enough already 😉 ].
You see, in order to secure government approval from some UK Members of Parliament [MP's] to build the tunnel in the first place, it was written into the contract that there would need to be international rail service to all parts of the UK, not just London, to be known as Regional Eurostar. Given that at the time this idea was drawn up, it was planned that Eurostar was to be a simple joint-venture between SNCF and British Rail with only the vague possibility that special trains might be needed, so this Channel Tunnel would have been operationally straightforward, as it could be as simple as sending a good ol' B.R train through the tunnel to France, and that was that, happy days, this time next year we'll be millionaires. Or so they thought, because if only it was as easy as sending an HST via the tunnel to France and getting a TGV in return :sleepy:.
1994 was a major year for railways in that it was the year that B.R would officially [pardon my pun] hit the buffers :rolleyes:. The new Conservative leadership under John Major decided B.R was to be sold off, an action often wrongly attributed to Thatcher who allegedly resisted calls to privatise B.R, despite being known for selling off state assets, and thus the railway was to be divided into private companies. The problem here was that this division led to confusion, as the unity that had previously existed had gone, meaning that instead of dealing with one company, Eurostar would be dealing with many, just to organise one potential international train service.
But, they pressed ahead anyway, because they had built the trains, and had MP's breathing down their necks about regional service with no idea about the potential complexity. But who cares about complexity, it would be profitable, right? :huh:.
So, the proposed plan was a 2-pronged operation, involving both day and night services. Day services would be operated by the shorter North of London Eurostars, the intent being they would use the East and West Coast mainlines to reach Scotland and other regional metropolises. By night, the same service would be offered by Nightstar, a dedicated sleeper train system hauled by Class 92 locomotives [hence their in-built capability for passenger work]. Nightstar would even offer services to Cornwall via the Great Western Main Line that Regional Eurostar would not, along the same route as the current 'Night Riviera', one of only 2 remaining sleeper train services in the UK.
The plan was utterly flawless, sending 16-car trains that were too long for most platforms down a mix of overly congested, undermaintained and sometimes unsuitable passenger lines, such as the heavily congested North London Line [now part of the London Overground], at a maximum speed of 110mph, lest they overload the electrical systems that were never built for such an advanced and powerful train and cause plenty of 'confusion and delay' [Thomas quotes never get old lol 😛].
Of course, reaching 110mph on the North London line is a statistical impossibility even now, but definitely more so back then when competing with the old B.R rolling stock in use, operated by Silverlink, a rail company known for filthy and delayed trains on the NLL throughout much of it's existence, their inadequacies being partly the reason for Transport for London [TfL] taking over the inner-London portion of their service and combining it with a converted London Underground line as the London Overground, in response to many local complaints.
Naturally, because this flawless plan was guaranteed to work on a network that was also literally falling apart [there was a series of devastating high-speed rail incidents in the UK caused by shoddy maintenance attributed to privatization at Hatfield and Potters Bar, with many injuries and deaths in the late 90's and early 2000's], Eurostar lounges were added to several stations along the proposed routes, and even a dedicated Eurostar maintainance shed was built in Birmingham proudly proclaiming 'Le Eurostar habite ici' - The Eurostar lives here. It still said that on the building when the abandoned and never-used facility was converted in the late 2000's for regular local rail use, although it bizzarely remains owned by the successor company to B.R's investment in Eurostar, London and Continental Railways [LCR]. In other words, the business gurus figured they had it all made, and within a few years, it would be great :cool: .
As everyone's favourite video game character Bubsy would say about the whole plan, 'What could possibly go wrong?'.
If my tone hasn't already indicated, the regional services never happened, but surprisingly not for the issues that I outlined. Indeed, the main issue was apparently the viability of such a service in the era of budget airlines providing much cheaper and faster regional air service, not the fact that they were literally planning to send a super-advanced train through a network that could barely handle the rolling stock built for it at the time, timetabled around many slow and unreliable trains, some from literally another era, with a maximum permitted speed lower than that of the then 30 year old HST sets that still formed the backbone of UK express service, simply to keep the crumbling infrastructure intact.
It must be considered that even if the plan had commenced, the train would have taken many hours to even reach the tunnel, let alone France [9 hours was the predicted Glasgow-Paris rail journey :s ], thanks to the fact that aside from needing to bypass London on the aforementioned decrepit and congested commuter lines like the North London Line, all trains would stop at Kensington Olympia in West London to allow the HM Border Force and French Border Force to board the train and check all passports, delaying progress further. These two issues were the nail in the coffin for the viability of regional services.
Believe it or not, it was allegedly even proposed that another car-shuttle service, more akin to the former B.R domestic 'Motorail' that also operated from Olympia would be avaliable too, allowing for you to drive on at London and drive off in France, saving a drive to Kent, but probably taking longer than it would for a quick spin down the M20 from London to Folkestone or Dover 😃. Additionally, despite Regional Eurostar never happening, Olympia was maintained as a back-up terminal if trains on the regular service could not reach Waterloo International, so border guards and the relevant facilities were always maintained until St Pancras became the main terminal.
So, in the end with millions of pounds down the pan, the North Of London sets became common-pool with the other Three Capitals sets, although some would see regional use with British rail operator GNER on the East Coast Main Line, operating express services between London, Leeds and York, as it was discovered that these were the only places on that line where the trains would be able to fit the restrictive UK loading gauge - Remember, they planned to run services with these to Edinburgh on the same line, so we can assume this planned journey involved a long walk after York to make up for the lack of a usable train :s.
Alternatively they could have used the HST service which, in a final stab at a basic regional service, was operated by B.R for a couple of years, consisting of specially timed HST services from the planned Regional Eurostar stops across the country to London stations that allowed connections to the Eurostar at Waterloo, once again proving that the HST was definitely the king of UK express service in the modern age, and was not about to be dethroned by some upstart TGV derivative. It would take a Shinkansen to de-seat the HST, and even then, not completely 😃 [see OP about the Virgin Train and 400 Series for more info on that story].
In a final attempt to try and stem their losses, the Nightstar carriages were converted and then sold to Canada's state-owned railway, VIA Rail, where they were called the 'Renaissance' fleet, operating successfully for many years on long distance VIA services to various parts of Canada, while the Class 92's owned by Eurostar were sold to freight operators EWS and GBRf, the latter of whom was later owned by [drumroll] Eurotunnel, partly bringing this whole mess full circle!
Incidentally, the Class 92 would eventually get to make use of it's Nightstar passenger haulage capabilities when the Caledonian Sleeper [the other sleeper service in the UK running from London Euston to various parts of Scotland] hired several to haul the train on electrified sections of the route. Prior to this, the 92's had only been used on freight, which still remains their primary use even now, especially as they are the only freight engines still certified for UK mainline, Channel Tunnel and French use, allowing direct freight operations. Notably, a Class 92 was part of the fleet used in the 7000 mile China-London rail-freight run, where a single train was trans-shipped via several railways from Yiwu in China to Ripple Lane freight depot in the London district of Barking, via the Channel Tunnel and CTRL line.
London Waterloo, as noted, would eventually become the Eurostar's London home in the UK, specifically the all-new Waterloo International, built onto one side of the original main station. This was another issue symptomatic of the state of the UK railways, as they were forced to use an existing terminal and lines, as there was no money or will to build a dedicated express line for the new service, at least not yet [see my post about the 400 Series for the story of the Channel Tunnel Rail Link]. Waterloo was picked simply because it had the most space to build onto, as well as being connected to the lines that the Eurostar needed to use, reducing the need for altering track layouts or building new connecting spurs.
This meant that the Eurostar shared tracks with the congested third-rail network used in the South-East as far as Ashford International, the final stop before the tunnel. Having special stations in London and Ashford eliminated the issue inherent in the failed Regional project, as it meant that international border-cleared passengers were separated out from others, much like at an airport, which would become the de-facto standard for international stations within the UK from then onwards, but the sharing of tracks meant that at least up to Ashford, it was slow-going, compounded by the decrepit state of the South East network after decades of state underfunding, with the futuristic Eurostars rubbing shoulders with 50-60 year old slam-door trains that, no pun intended, belonged in a museum by that point.
But, as the great pitchman Billy Mays once said - 'I'm not done yet!'
Because yes, there's a little more left to this saga. As far as the UK was concerned this is where the story ends, as the TMST's/373's would then operate right up to the late 2010's, being replaced gradually by the newer, ICE derived Velaro sets. However, as the ownership of Eurostar, and the trains themselves were split between Britain, France and Belgium, the fates of the trains varied. While several have been scrapped as surplus to requirements, several still operate with Eurostar, and one operates with Thalys under their iZY brand, connecting France and Belgium. Some also formerly operated with the SNCF as regular TGV units in France, still carrying their Eurostar colour scheme.
The operational history of Eurostar would shift when St Pancras International opened, connected to the dedicated High Speed 1 line that would make the journey times more competitive with flights, as it allowed the Eurostar to achieve full-speed all the way [also rendering it's UK electrical capabilities moot, as HS1 is built partly to French TGV standards, including voltage], and after many years of abandonment, Waterloo International recently reopened as part of the main station, acting as additional platforms to what is argued to be London's busiest commuter station [but not the busiest overall, that award goes to Clapham Junction down the line from Waterloo 😉] This upgrade has made the Eurostar a much more competitive and heavily used service, current situation notwithstanding, often being touted as the service that saved St Pancras from closure, as prior to it's arrival St Pancras was hosting very few trains, with murmurs that it might be closed, and it's services moved elsewhere. This never happened, and now those same services [InterCity service to the East Midlands and Thameslink commuter services], alongside the SouthEastern HS1 domestic services have, with the Eurostar traffic, transformed St Pancras into a thriving terminus once again.
For Eurotunnel, aside from an official name change to 'Getlink', apparently to reflect it's status as a diversified company, having dabbled in ferries after taking over the assets of SeaFrance and renaming it to 'MyFerryLink', before being forced to sell it due to monopoly concerns, keeping one boat to carry any dangerous goods vehicles turned away at the tunnel, and UK railway freight, buying GBRf from bus and train operator First, before selling it on again some time later, their operation and contract to operate the tunnel on a for-profit basis has remained the same, with the Eurotunnel brand still in use for all customer-facing materials.
Meanwhile, attempts are being considered to break Eurostar's passenger monopoly, with Getlink reportedly consulting about the feasibility of operating a discount 'Cross-Channel Express' based on the TGV 'Ouigo' model in France, using modified TGV units and lesser-used stations in France and the UK, such as Stratford International, which despite it's name, and facilities has never had an international service stop there, being a stop for HS1 domestic only at present. Other proposals include one from the Deutsche Bahn [DB] to run direct ICE services to St Pancras or Stratford using ICE Velaro units, which are virtually the same train as the current Eurostar Class 374, along with a few proposals by Kent and Calais regional councils to try and investigate 'Channel Tunnel Commuter' service, a short-haul service between each end of the tunnel to allow day commuters to go to work in France or the UK without the expense of using the Eurostar or Eurotunnel.
