I read this on his site the other day, I thought at the time that he might come to regret this. The airline will be swamped and he'll be unable to get a look in.

Oh, unless, that is, he has an arrangement with them for preferential treatment after giving them all this free publicity ;-).

Ironic, in that Eurostar has been considered by some transport commentators as a 'grounded airline', in that it's not really intergrated in any way with the railway systems on either side of the channel.

Part of it is the demands by HM Customs and Immigration, who have given us the cumbersome check-in and immigration clearance procedures, that wipe out some of what should be rail's convenience over air.

They also scuppered the services to the regions; like the long-distance international servicesnon the continent, those trains would never have been economically viable unless they could carry domestic as well as international passengers. In order to carry out customs and immigration checks on board the trains (as is commonplace in Europe), they demanded an entire carraige to contain cells and interview rooms.

But hang about aren't the existing Eurostars at least in part domestic: London to Ashford, Paris to Lille? Or is there some special arrangement?

The trouble is that you may not ride on them for domestic journeys, in either France or Britain. You must board on one side of the Channel and get off on the other. Therefore they cannot carry passengers from London to Ashford, or Lille to Paris or Calais to Paris (or Lille or Calais to Brussels either for that matter). This (and a couple of other factors, one of which is the length of the trains) is a big reason why substantial numbers of services beyond Paris are not presently viable.

I will write a post on what I think is wrong with Eurostar, and put it up over the next couple of days.

GNER use Eurostar trains on their East Coast service. Initially they were in plain old Eurostar livery but shortly after they got painted up in GNER colours*.

Why they shouldn't fit onto the French system is a mystery to me. I eagerly await Michael's post to find out why.

*I know this because I work in the building sharing the photo with this GNER eurostar train here http://217.45.250.217/rail-net-archive/gner_eurostar-1/image012.jpg (from this site http://www.rail-net.co.uk/photo-archive/gner_eurostar-1/gner_eurostar-1.htm)

The problem isn't the trains themselves (the sets used by GNER are those originally built for north-of-London services)

Six Eurostar sets and six trains of locomotive-hauled stock (for overnight services) were built for services beyond London. Because they weren't allowed to carry domestic passengers on the lengthy section of the run within Britain, the services would not have been economically viable.

Some of the Eurostar sets are now in service with GNER, as already mentioned. The locomotive-hauled coaches, including sleeping cars, were eventually sold at a knock-down price to Canada.

The Eurostars used by GNER are some of the sets originally built for the North-of-London services.

There were six Eurostar sets and six sets of locomotive-hauled stock for services beyond London, intended to serve Birmingham, Manchester, Glasgow, Leeds, Cardiff and Plymouth. Because they weren't allowed to carry domestic passengers on the lengthy portion of the run within Britain, the services would never be economically viable.

GNER took some of the Eurostar sets, while the hauled stock got sold at a knock-down price to Canada. The locomotives that would have pulled them (not new build, but refurbished 1960s class 37s) were sold the the freight operator DRS.

How were they supposed to get to Cardiff of Plymouth without any power? Would the GWR lines have been electrified had these trains been allowed? Seems a huge lot of money just for a few trains.

To answer Mark's question, they were going to be diesel-hauled west of London, with electric locomotives used through the tunnel. The Glasgow train would have been electrically-hauled throughout.

Several pairs of class 37 diesels were refurbished, with generating vans converted from redundant sleeping cars to power the train heating and air-conditioning. The 37s are now in the hands of DRS (part of British Nuclear Fuels), while the generator vans are gathering dust somewhere.

There are also seven class 92 dual-voltage electric locomotives, the type used for freight haulage through the tunnel. They were used by EWS for a period for freight haulage (EWS has it's own fleet of forty-odd of them), but are now up for sale.