Its been a while since I travelled on Eurostar, but yesterday I went to Paris and back. For the first time, I travelled business class at a premium price that was the equivalent of an airfare to Paris from BA.
The staff and service were great. They looked after everyone well, spoke both French and English to a very high standard. The trains departed and arrived on time. This was the first time that I had been on the"new" track on the english side, and arriving at St Pancras. It made a huge difference to the clanky nasty old rails that used to carry Eurostar to Waterloo.
The bad news is that Eurostar really needs to do some urgent refurbishment. Toilets were dirty and doors wouldn't stay shut. One loo on each train was out of order in the section I was in. The business carriages were extremely tired. Dirty carpets, dirty seats, leather arms on the chairs in very poor repair, colours looking extremely dated.
I feel sorry for the staff - they do their best to uphold the brand promise. But they are let down by the infrastructure, and that's a fixable management issue, given that Eurostar traffic seems to be holding up well by my unscientific count of the number of people waiting to travel yesterday. Maybe the management is as tired as the trains. Maybe the people who run the operational timetable at Eurostar should get a job at BAA, and perhaps the BA people who keep the interiors of their airlines could do a lot for Eurostar.
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