Eurostar

Wednesday

The Spectator

How have Eurostar passenger numbers changed?

From our UK edition

Made to run A robot at the Robotic Olympiad in Beijing bettered Usain Bolt’s 100 metres record by 0.19 seconds. – It has taken a century, however, for reality to catch up with fiction. The term ‘robot’ comes from a play, R.U.R., written by the Czech writer Karel Capek. The title stood for Rossum’s Universal Robots, a company which manufactured machines to replace humans in factory production. It was derived from Robotnik, a Czech term from a slave or drudge. Channel passengers Virgin Trains won permission from the Office of Rail and Road to run up to 20 services through the Channel Tunnel, taking on the current monopoly operator Eurostar. How have Eurostar passengers numbers changed over the years?

Thursday

Amy Rose Everett

London to Amsterdam via Brussels: taking the long way

Brexit, the gift that keeps on giving: from June 14, 2024 to January 2025, a reduced Eurostar service will run between London and Amsterdam. Why? Part-closure of Amsterdam Centraal leaves no space for the extra bureaucracy now necessary. Passengers returning to London will change at Brussels to go through security and passport checks, adding up to almost two hours of extra journey time. Global travel booking platforms such as OMIO have reported a surge in train travel in recent years. Cheaper prices (compared to flying) and environmental concerns are cited as the main drivers. But Eurostar’s capped passenger numbers and indirect routes will surely increase air travel in 2024, literally flying in the face of Dutch sustainability policies.

brussels

Wednesday

Martin Vander Weyer

Jeremy Hunt should stick to sensible pledges – it’s too late for big moves

From our UK edition

Imagine you’re Chancellor Jeremy Hunt, drafting your Autumn Statement for delivery in three weeks’ time. Bookies’ odds for a Tory general election win have moved out to six-to-one (against Labour’s dead-cert one-to-seven) following by-election wipe-outs. The Lib Dems look set to nab your South West Surrey seat if you don’t stand down anyway. And you can’t give your back-benches red-meat tax cuts because public borrowing for this year could run £30 billion higher than forecast. Releasing the pension ‘triple lock’ to save money would alienate older Tories. Inheritance tax giveaways that might please them would be campaign gold for Labour.