Today is a grand day for the Eurostar and St.Pancras. The world's fastest train will be running commercially for the first time through international borders from St.Pancras today. But the functioning is not expected to be smooth with strikes taking place in London and at France.

Eurostar will make its debut at 1101 GMT today with its service to Paris which should take around 135 minutes. The second departure would be at 1106 GMT to Brussels. The first arrival will happen 3 minutes later at 1109 GMT from Brussels. The Brussels service ride should take around 111 minutes.

The last service of Eurostar from Waterloo ended late Tuesday evening(13-Nov-07) almost on the same day it started 13 years ago. Waterloo will now be used for trains ferrying from Surrey.

There are several demonstrations at and around the station expected to take place today.

A group of residents living close by St.Pancras are blaming the authorities of squeezing the poor out of the area to accommodate for the new station.

Interestingly, London Cycling Campaign has also thrown in their hats for the protest. They claim that the access to the station for bicycles in below par.

While these two are centered at the station, down South in France, the French rail unions have began an indefinite strike to protest against the pension reforms.

Just like any other management would state, Eurostar is confident that no threat could avert the train rides.

via BBC

London’s underground subway system may not be a boring ride anymore. Three scientists from University of California are working on setting up a music sharing network in the trains.

London Undersound as the project is called, will work exactly like any other music sharing network. Mobile phones enabled with Bluetooth and Wi-Fi will act as terminals. Each station will have certain tracks in its repository and will have some relation to the area of the city. Users can download songs, share with others and also upload to the repository.

London’s subway system is a mobile-shadow region; no mobiles pick up even the faintest of signals. Transponders are not allowed in this over a century old tunnels. The only use of cell phones on the system is to play games or exchange files locally using Bluetooth or IR.

While sharing of music comes into picture, it also attracts the legal corridors. The men behind this project have decided not to play with fire; emerging artists’ work will be shared instead. Certain filters will be used to prevent copyrighted material from being shared and uploaded.

Amidst celebrations of the opening of the St.Pancras train station, experts in Scotland have expressed their displeasure with the high-speed rail link. Businessmen in Scotland felt uneasy with Eurostar and stated that it could potentially marginalise Scotland.

A research carried out by The Independent said that it would be faster to travel from London to Marseilles or Switzerland than to get to Montrose. Also skiers may be interested in heading to French Alps than Aviemore as they had similar transit times.

The paper's travel editor, Simon Calder, told BBC Radio's Good Morning Scotland programme that cities like Amsterdam and Cologne would have the same journey times from the south east of England as Glasgow and Edinburgh.

The Edinburgh Chamber of Commerce has called in for faster rail links between Glasgow and Edinburgh to reduce the transit times and have a fighting chance with other places in Europe. Meanwhile, UK rail minister, Tom Harris has stated that the upgrade of the West Coast Main Line next year would reduce the journey times significantly between Glasgow and Edinburgh.

via BBC

A series of train strikes will hit commuters in UK in the coming weeks. Two hundred drivers from Midland Mainline will go on strike on multiple days starting today.

The strikes will take place on Thursdays starting today until the 29th of November. It will affect trains that ply through Leeds, Wakefield, Sheffield, Chesterfield, Nottingham and Luton. A paltry five trains will adorn the British rails between London and Derby on the strike days.

The strikes are due to a disagreement over pension a deal which was signed in 2001. There would be attempts made to conclude on a consensus before the next Thursday. The company claims that the union has backed out on the deal it had agreed upon six years back.

Spokeswoman Debbie Mather said: "The truth of the matter is that Aslef are going on strike in relation to a pay deal that was signed by us and by them six years ago... it has been signed, they agreed it and it's been in place for six years."

via BBC

Eurostar will be connecting 68 UK destinations with several European destinations; with Paris topping the list. Sales will start on the fourteenth of November from St.Pancras, the day Eurostar debuts their service in UK. Fares will be available to Paris, Brussels, Lille, Disneyland Paris and stations across France and Belgium .

East Midland trains, First Capital Connect, GNER and Virgin trains have obtained the franchisee to sell tickets. The fares would be made available 90 days in advance.

Standard class, return leisure fares to Paris, Brussels and Disneyland Resort Paris will start from between £67 and £92, for travel from major stations across Britain such as Birmingham, Cambridge, Edinburgh and Sheffield.

The introduction of Eurostar could spell doom for airliners as the former has claimed to beat the flight times and the fares. However, the airliners have snubbed the effort by stating that nothing can match the flexible times offered by them.

via BBC