Go to bed in Scotland, wake up in Paris under new rail plans

Published on Tuesday 4 January 2011 13:35

Scottish travellers could benefit from direct rail journeys to mainland Europe, under plans unveiled by Labour.

Transport spokesman Charlie Gordon says if the party wins power at Holyrood in May, it will press ScotRail to look at setting up a sleeper service to Paris and Brussels when the current contract is renegotiated.

At the moment, all services from Paris and Brussels terminate at St Pancras station in London, but Labour says sleepers should be able to undertake the entire journey between mainland Europe and Scotland.

"I believe travellers should be able to get on a train in Aberdeen, Inverness, Glasgow, Dundee or Edinburgh and get off in Paris or Brussels, without having to change," Mr Gordon said.

"Freight has been transported from the continent to the Eurocentral terminal in Lanarkshire. If we can move lumps of coal, we should be able to move people."

He went on: "Taxpayers from all over the UK contributed to the cost of the Channel Tunnel and the new high-speed rail link to St Pancras. The rail companies need to do more to ensure that their services don't just stop at London and we can all benefit from this investment.

"The next time there is a rugby match between Scotland and France in Paris, I want Scottish supporters to have the option of travelling by train."

If Labour's plan came to fruition, the current fleet of sleeper trains and carriages would need to be replaced by rolling stock that could run on the Eurotunnel lines.

Eurostar-type trains were developed in the mid-1990s, but they never entered service in the UK after teething problems and were sold to Canada.

"If you're going to have to modernise the sleeper service anyway one day, you might as well look at having a train that's capable of international travel," Mr Gordon said.

He added: "It is physically possible, but whether it's institutionally or contractually possible, I have my doubts.

"The slots on the track are leased to operators like the way landing slots at an airport are leased to airlines. You would need access to the Channel Tunnel lines, but that ought to be possible."

Labour believes it would be possible to develop a market for passengers who want to travel from the main Scottish cities to the European mainland on the sleeper service.

This may involve "mixed loads" of passengers, with some going to London and others going to the European mainland on different parts of the train. The current squeeze on public spending may mean that a more long-term approach has to be taken.

A spokesman for ScotRail, which operates sleeper services to London, said it would "await an update" on this proposal in due course.Robert Samson of Passenger Focus Scotland, said the issue was not a priority for travellers.

"If you go and ask passengers on the platform just now what their priorities are, what they will tell you is punctuality, frequency, being able to get a seat on a train, value for money and being able to buy a ticket easily," he said. "Those are the priorities now; it's bread and butter issues."

There have previously been reserved paths available from Scotland for rail services to access the Eurotunnel, according to Mr Gordon, a former chairman of the Strathclyde Partnership for Transport.

"It was always envisioned that Scotland, and certainly Glasgow and Edinburgh, would have scheduled Eurostar services to the continent, but that plan was cancelled quite a number of years ago," he said.

"Part of the ScotRail franchise is to take sleeper trains to London and if we're thinking about future modernisation of the sleeper, then with modern infrastructure, it's not all that much further, about two and a half hours from London, to get to Brussels and Paris."