Rolling Stock
The trains to operate all these services were built at the same time as the Channel Tunnel was under construction in the late 1980s to early 1990s. The London-Paris-Brussels ("Three Capital" Class 373) trains are owned in groups by Eurostar (UK) (subsidiary of LCR), SNCF and NMBS/SNCB but operate as a common pool. They consist of 18 coaches in a fixed formation. Seven shorter 14-coach North of London (NoL) were also constructed for the regional services at a cost of £180 million. All seven are owned by Eurostar (UK) having been transferred from British Rail. Following the non-start of regional services, the trains were stored at North Pole depot in west London. Six of the seven trains have seen use at various times since. The Nightstar sleeper trains were never completed and were subsequently sold to Via Rail in Canada.
Between 2001 and 2005, British ECML operator GNER used three train sets to provide additional domestic capacity. Branded White Rose after the White Rose of Yorkshire, sets 3301–3306 received a deep-blue livery using vinyl wraps, with 3307–3312 being stripped of their Eurostar logos to fulfill the roster when the GNER-branded sets were unavailable. On occasions a GNER vinyled half set would operate with an unvinyled half set. Initially the GNER White Rose services ran between London Kings Cross and York, then, after clearance was given, between London and Leeds. The sets continued to be maintained with the other Eurostar units at North Pole depot, where they returned to storage in 2005 following the end of the GNER lease.
NoL set 3313/14 was used during acceptance testing on section 1 of High Speed 1 and in the process of over-speed testing, set a new UK rail speed record of 334.7 km/h (208 mph) in 2003. The set is named Entente Cordiale and has seen use as a VIP charter train, having transported the Queen on a state visit to France and to the Entente Cordiale anniversary celebrations in 2004. On 12 June 2007 the unit was used to carry International Olympic Committee inspectors from Stratford International to London St. Pancras, as a demonstration for Olympic Javelin services in 2012.
The current future of the NoL sets remains uncertain. Software upgrades are believed to be required to allow the units to operate independently as a half-set; it is likely that the units will receive a similar paint-scheme to the Three Capitals Eurostar units already in use by SNCF for domestic service.
Read more about this topic: Regional Eurostar
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