EN ROUTE
Four scrapped Eurostar routes from the UK that you may not know about as Virgin plots rival trains
And the Sun Travel team share their top tips for each direct Eurostar destination in Europe
WITH just five direct routes from the UK to Europe by train, many may not realise just how many destinations Eurostar once travelled to.
And with Virgin announcing plans to order a new fleet of trains to rival Eurostar, we've taken a deep dive into the rail service's forgotten past.
4
4
While the Eurostar offers speedy ways into Europe, over the past few years some journeys were made unavailable or in some cases, scrapped before they had a chance to leave the station.
Marseille
Currently, Eurostar only travels to two French cities, Paris and Lille.
Yet the old links to Marseille operated until 2020.
The direct route from London to Marseille was a journey that took six hours connecting the UK and southern France.
Read More about the Eurostar
It was the first scheduled service to connect the Thames to the Mediterranean, but was cancelled during the pandemic and has failed to return.
Now, you'll need to change train in Paris or Lille and get a direct train to Marseille from there.
Lyon
Another Eurostar route that stopped post-pandemic was the direct route to Lyon.
It was once possible to reach the French city in four-and-a-half hours and the service used to run up to four times a week in the summer.
Most read in City breaks
The seasonal route ran from 2002 to 2014, with a permanent route in 2014.
Sadly it was cancelled in 2018 due to low demand.
‘World’s FASTEST bullet train’ that can reach 280mph is unveiled - and it even has a dining car and plush business-class
Avignon
Another Eurostar route from London was the southern French city of Avignon which could be reached directly in under six hours.
Also starting in 2002, the route was scrapped in 2020.
Now, the route can take up to nine hours, depending on the changes, and passengers will either have to switch in Lille or Paris.
Ski resorts in France
Other services that you can no longer get to directly on the Eurostar are what used to be known as the 'snow trains'.
Aimed at skiers, there were trains with direct routes straight through to ski resort towns and cities between December and March.
The seasonal Eurostar connections ran to Bourg-Saint-Maurice, Aime-la-Plagne and Moûtiers.
Very suitable for keen skiers, the service would take eight hours to get there directly.
Now, winter sport enthusiasts will set off from London St Pancras International and have to grab a connection at Lille.
4
From there, the train will continue and make stops at at Chambéry, Albertville, Moûtiers-Salins-Brides-Les-Bains, Aime-la-Plagne, and Bourg-Saint-Maurice.
Of course, while London St Pancras is now home to the Eurostar the service used to be in Waterloo.
The Eurostar service first opened in Waterloo International Station but was relocated to St Pancras in November 2007.
The reason for the move was to free up national train lines and increase the number of trains connecting London and Kent.
There are some Eurostar routes that were planned but never even came to fruition.
There was once a hope for regional Eurostar services; these would run from Paris and Brussels to locations in the United Kingdom to the north and west of London.
Regional Eurostar services were never fully implemented because of the rise in budget airlines and the privatization of British Rail.
Another planned route was the 'International Nightstar sleeper train', this was a train that was supposed to travel the same routes as Regional Eurostar, plus the Great Western Main Line to Cardiff Central.
The scheme was abandoned and no services were ever operated.
READ MORE SUN STORIES
The European Virgin fleet explained
Here's a quick rundown of what the new Virgin trains to Europe entails
- Virgin has announced plans to order a dozen new trains to compete with Eurostar for routes to Europe.
- The train models under consideration include those from Japanese Hitachi, German Siemens, Spanish operator Talgo, and France's Alstom.
- The purchase of the trains is expected to cost £500 million, with the total project cost potentially reaching up to £1 billion.
- If approved, the new Virgin trains could be operational by 2029.
- Virgin aims to preempt other operators like Evolyn, which also announced plans for London to Paris trains in 2023.
There are also plans for Eurostar to relaunch its direct service from Amsterdam to London next year.
The Sun travel team visited every city in Europe you can visit by direct train - here’s what we thought.
4
Topics