St.Pancras -> Stratford international (Southeastern)

[mullardo]

Does anyone know if travelcards will be valid on this route?

[Starkey7]

Ruddy well ought to be.

[dudey]

While the topic is on HS1, I would like to rant a bit.

Domestic services on HS1 are waste of money for anywhere that isn't Ashford (kent). My local station (Faversham) will be the terminal for one of the serivces in december when full service commences, and the journey time will be 1hr10mins, only 10 minutes faster than what it currently takes to get to Victoria on a normal old 375.

The only positive here seems to me to be if you commute or are in some kind of major hurry to go to somewhere in that area of London, which is very unlikely because there is nothing of interest in King's Cross. There are however many negatives. My line will be losing 3 peak time services to Victoria and all of the 4 very popular peak time Cannon Street services. St Pancras International is a temple to the rich. There is no pub to speak of, there are no fast food eateries or infact anywhere that is open after 10pm. The closest you can get to a high street name in there is Marks & Spencers expensive Simply Food store. It is also massive, and to get from one set of platforms to another you have to walk the length of a eurostar train, which will put even the fittest of folks a bit out of breath just to get to the 'highly connected' underground station. KX-SP is also the most ridiculously busy station on the LU system, and to even get to the automated ticket machines takes about 10 minutes because of the ignorant tourists unable to figure out how to use them, but they persist because of the even longer queues at the 10(!) ticket windows.

But, we in the Southeastern region are to sit and accept it because this is apparently great and exciting, and sure the new Hitachi 395 trains are very pretty, but they are far from any more comfortable than existing 375 fleet, infact the interior is almost identical. We also have to pay for the pleasure of either using HS1 (at a £7 premium on your day return ticket), and also in blanket fair increases when the rest of the country will soon be benefiting from inflation tracking fare-decreases.

Local politicians here in Faversham lobbied hard to make sure we got the service this far rather than Sittingbourne, as was originally planned, and I agree we might have missed out because of this perceived glamour and the tourism around the 2012 Olympics, but I wonder whether people will start to come round to my way of thinking in December when all of the negatives mentioned above start to hit home.

Thanks for not listening

[Soup Dragon]

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Good rant Matt, and some very well made points

[al]

There is a pub there, it's just easy to miss. It is on the first floor above the underground entrance. Also, I'm surprised there is nothing open food wise after 10pm, but I normally like to be on my way home by then so can't contradict you on that one.

[jamesthegill]

There is a pub there, it's just easy to miss. It is on the first floor above the underground entrance. Also, I'm surprised there is nothing open food wise after 10pm, but I normally like to be on my way home by then so can't contradict you on that one.

It's bloody expensive though, more so than the Spoons in Victoria. And when you're coming home after a gig, it's usually 11pm onwards, and you want to get something to eat on the train home to stop you falling asleep and missing your stop

[dudey]

There is a pub there, it's just easy to miss. It is on the first floor above the underground entrance. Also, I'm surprised there is nothing open food wise after 10pm, but I normally like to be on my way home by then so can't contradict you on that one.

And it's table service. I'd have thought that automatically disqualifies it from classification as a 'pub'

[mullardo]

I have found out the answer. Travelcards will most likely NOT be valid on domestic High speed service between St.Pancras and Stratford International.

When Southeastern Trains was put out to tender as the IKF (Integrated Kent Franchise) they were given ticket constraints for the HS1 services like +30% on normal tickets and, importantly for this situation, under the previso that Travelcards need not be valid on the services between the 2 london stations.

So Unless South Eastern are going to be nice, it's a no.

[Mitchell&BrownLook]

The only thing I can add to this is that back in 2005, the plan was for all Olympic and Paralympic tickets to double up as a day travel-card, so as to promote the use of public transport, especially through what was then CTRL part 2, now HS1, as it is expected to be carrying a great percentage of all Olympic Park visitors. I believe this plan was written in the bid document which outlined all of the bid ideas and was given to the International Olympic Committee prior to their vote in Kuala Lumpa. If this was in the bid document, then it will be very tough, if not impossible, to retract this, with the few things that have been undone receiving some media attention.

What I don't know is if this is only for the duration of the two Games, or will be normal practice by then.

[jbom1]

The only thing I can add to this is that back in 2005, the plan was for all Olympic and Paralympic tickets to double up as a day travel-card, so as to promote the use of public transport, especially through what was then CTRL part 2, now HS1, as it is expected to be carrying a great percentage of all Olympic Park visitors. I believe this plan was written in the bid document which outlined all of the bid ideas and was given to the International Olympic Committee prior to their vote in Kuala Lumpa. If this was in the bid document, then it will be very tough, if not impossible, to retract this, with the few things that have been undone receiving some media attention.

What I don't know is if this is only for the duration of the two Games, or will be normal practice by then.

Will they have Oyster chips, or will someone's £100 ticket for the 100m final get eaten by the ticket barrier?

[Mitchell&BrownLook]

I've always assumed that Games tickets would be the same as paper travel-cards with magnetic stripes, perhaps with Games venues having turnstiles based on such technology. But you may be right, I'll tell you when I get some tickets shall I?!

(That was a planning ahead, Andi esque answer, I know!)