True stories from the Great Railway Disaster

A weekly chronicle of the absurdities caused by the Government's privatisation programme; No 35: so you want to use the Eurostar special?

SEVERAL readers have written to complain about the trains that connect with the Eurostar service at Waterloo.

Joan Tate was waiting at Wolverhampton for a service to Euston. She describes how "a long train of first-class carriages drew up and was announced as going to Waterloo".She asked if she could get on it. "No, madam," she was told, "or you will be charged for a ticket from Manchester to Paris."

"But there's no one on it."

"No, madam, but those are the rules."

Since she often goes to south London, she asked how she could buy a ticket on this ghost train: "That's not our business," the InterCity man said, "It's a Eurotunnel train [actually it's Eurostar] and you can get tickets only from them."

Eurostar says that as these trains will eventually be replaced by direct trains not stopping at Waterloo, it would be wrong to attract domestic passengers to them. In fact, other InterCity train operators argue that they would lose revenue if domestic passengers were allowed to use them.

John Stevenson has sent a cutting from the Edinburgh Evening News explaining that to get a ticket for this train, customers must go to the Continental booking office at Waverley station, which does not open until 9am - half an hour after the train leaves.

Richard Hargreaves from Skipton planned to use the train to return to Leeds from Paris. He got off at Waterloo only to find no sign of the train for Leeds on the departures board. He writes: "Finally I spotted an InterCity train at a platform in the far corner of the station and, though there was no information board to say where it was going, it turned out to be the right train."

When he asked why the train was not mentioned on the concourse board, he was told that, as it was a Eurostar service, "the main Waterloo station [as opposed to the neighbouring International station] would not be able to give out information about it". Presumably this is because other potential non- Eurostar passengers might learn about the service.