Eurostar grabs more passengers from the airlines

Eurostar released their latest passenger figures yesterday, showing fantastic results.

Eurostar trains carried 2.17 million people between January and March this year, a 21.3% increase on the same period in 2007.

One of the undoubtable factors of this success was the switch between Waterloo station and St Pancras International. The new St Pancras station opened its doors to Eurostar passengers in mid-November last year, and saw passenger numbers increase in the first 2 months.

With journey times between London and the continent, regular flight commuters are turning towards the greener, more convenient Eurostar option. An early Easter, the Six Nations tournament and the introduction of through fares from 68 towns and cities across Britain has helped Eurostar ticket sales rise by more than 25% to £178.4 million.

Eurostar also reported fantastic punctuality figures. A record of 93.6% of Eurostar trains arrived on time, or less than 15 minutes late.

Good work guys!

The Last Snow

With longer days, more sun and warmer temperatures it's no surprise that skiing in Spring is more popular than ever.

The sun has almost set on yet another great skiing season, but there is still time to hit the slopes if you haven't had your snow fix of 2008.

Rail Europe is still running it's snow train service, with travel remaining on the 21st and 28th March, and the final snow train of the season runs on the 4th April.

Eurostar's night ski train finishes on the 21st March, but the day ski train continues up until the 13th April.

It's your last chance to ski of 2008, so get booked and get skiing!

Welcome to 2008!

Hello and Happy New Year to you all!

I hope you all had a relaxing break and are re-charged and ready to tackle 2008.

I took a well deserved break over Christmas and decided to check out England's only ski slope. England has a ski slope I hear you cry? Yep, in the Lake District.

Not only did the continent receive good snowfall, but so did the UK highlands. The one ski run in the Lake District is situated on Raise, next to the Helvellyn range.

The run is very basic, with a wooden hut housing a generator to power the only ski tow up the side of the mountain, and a small ski hut which was built by Lake District ski club members in 1999. The best part is the slope cannot be reached by car. You need a 1 hour hike up Sticks Pass to reach the slope, so only enthusiastic Lake District Ski Club members can ski.

I took the image below from the northery peak to Raise (Stybarrow Dodd) which shows some snow on the slope...and plenty of skiers (although you might need a magnifying glass)!

More recent pics from today show much more snow cover, so ski club members should be enjoying a good weekend! These can be seen on their Flickr page.

Elsewhere, the snow was plentiful over Christmas and New Year, with Austria again taking the plaudits for fantastic skiing and snowboarding conditions.

The latest snow conditions can be found at Ski Club's Snow Reports page.

Eurostar offers tickets to the rest of the UK

Eurostar has launched a service for passengers to buy tickets from 68 major towns and cities across the UK.

Eurostar's booking system is now linked with seven major UK train operators including Virgin Trains, First Capital Connect, National Express East Coast (formerly GNER), East Midlands Trains, Chiltern Railways, London Midland and Hull Trains.

The new through-fares now provide greater access for the UK population to reach destinations such as France, Belgium and the rest of Europe.

The new fares are available up to 84 days in advance and include travel on the tube in London for passengers who need to transfer to St. Pancras International.

To search for fares, use our Eurostar fare search on the Eurostar tickets page. Return fares start from £67.

Another good selling point for the new service is that if passengers miss a train due to a delayed connecting service, they will be able to travel on the next available Eurostar at no extra cost.

So now passengers looking to take a snow train to a ski destination in Europe have no excuse!

Happy travelling!

Snow in Kitzbühel!

Austria seems to be the focus of attention for skiers and snowboarders last weekend.

The picture below is taken from Kitzbühel - beautiful blue skies and fresh snow!


Many of my recent posts have talked about some of the Austrian resorts and the abundance of snow at the moment. However, I have failed to help you out by not telling you how to get to Kitzbühel!

Ironically enough, Daniel Elkin produced a great article for the Observer on Sunday which promotes snow train travel to different European resorts. Daniel covered a few options for how to reach ski resorts such as Ischgl and Kitzbühel in Austria, Zermatt and St. Moritz in Switzerland and Chamonix in France.

So to reach Kitzbühel for example, take a Eurostar train from St. Pancras International to Brussels. Then board a Bergland Express train, which takes approximately 13 hours (overnight).

Alternatively, take the Eurostar to Paris, then from the Gare de l'Est you can take an overnight train to Munich. There is a regular Eurocity service train service between Munich and Innsbruck. From Innsbruck, there are serveral services which connect the 1 hours journey between Innsbruck and Kitzbuhel.