Travelling through Britain – Mainline Trains
The British railway network is one of the most extensive in Europe with over 17,500 kilometres of lines, about 2,500 passenger stations and around 15,000 scheduled trains a day. There is no national carrier since British Rail was privatised in 1997. There are 20 railway companies operating services on a regional basis.
London is served from the surrounding counties and the rest of the country by a host of train companies. Scattered around the perimeters of Zone 1 are a series of mainline stations with famous names. North London’s hubs are King’s Cross/St Pancras and Euston. Most train journeys to the north of London start here. Paddington and Marylebone serve the west. To the Southwest are Victoria and Waterloo. The latter station also acts as the terminus for the Eurostar service to mainland Europe. Charing Cross and Cannon Street serve the southern edge of Zone 1. Mainline travel to the east of London starts at either Liverpool Street or the smaller Fenchurch Street station.
All these stations are connected to the Tube, as well as having buses and taxis available on the streets surrounding them. There is a complicated fare structure which has prices calculated by factoring in the time of day, day of the week, your status (age, number of travellers, etc.) and travel duration. The ticket salesmen behind the counters at stations will usually recommend the best fare.
Tickets are checked on board once the train is under way.
The Eurostar service from Waterloo is a fast passenger train, which travels from London to central Paris, Brussels or EuroDisney. (More stations are being added all the time). It crosses under the English Channel through a tunnel called the “Chunnel”. The train travels at speeds of up to 185km/h (on the French side) taking about three hours to arrive in central Paris. Its also possible to travel by car in “Le Shuttle”, the car train service that travels through the Chunnel from Folkestone in Kent to Calais in France.