Beginnings
When the Channel Tunnel was first announced in the 1980s it was part of the proposals to operate high-speed rail services through it on both sides of the English Channel with a substantial network envisioned. This was gradually reduced to a core service, along dedicated TGV-style high-speed lines, between the three capital cities, regional daytime services to Glasgow (via the East Coast Main Line) and Manchester (via the West Coast Main Line), and Nightstar sleeper services to the same cities as well as Bristol and Cardiff via the Great Western Main Line.
A depot for the regional Eurostar services was constructed at Longsight in Manchester (Manchester International Depot). Trial runs were undertaken using the NoL units on both the East and West Coast Main Lines and passenger information signs and Eurostar lounges were installed at stations along the route. As the high-speed rail line between London and the Channel Tunnel, High Speed 1, was not under construction Eurostar services within the UK were forced to use existing rail lines and connecting junctions were built to allow Regional Eurostars access via the congested North London Line. In all British Rail invested £140 million in infrastructure to allow the services to operate.
Read more about this topic: Regional Eurostar
Famous quotes containing the word beginnings:
“These beginnings of commerce on a lake in the wilderness are very interesting,—these larger white birds that come to keep company with the gulls.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“When the beginnings of self-destruction enter the heart it seems no bigger than a grain of sand.”
—John Cheever (1912–1982)
“The frantic search of five-year-olds for friends can thus be seen to forecast the beginnings of a basic shift in the parent-child relationship, a shift which will occur gradually over many long years, and in which a child needs not only the support of child allies engaged in the same struggle but also the understanding of his parents.”
—Dorothy H. Cohen (20th century)