Kent, France and Belgium travels

To finish off this thread, our last day we headed back to the Channel Tunnel, but we were in no hurry.

We followed the coast road, and where it co-incided, the 'Kust-Tram' route down to De Panne, where we stopped for a walk along the seafront.

We then carried on along the coast road, onto France, following as far as we could the abandoned railway from De Panne to Dunkirk....

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De Panne Yard and where the line to France continued south west.

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Former station at Bray Dunes, now used by the local community.

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Abandoned track at Bray Dunes by the former level crossing.

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Former station at Leffrinckoucke, part of which is a Tourist Office.

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The track here was in a better state than at Bray Dunes.

There is talk of re-opening this line again, but for now, a bus connects the stations between Dunkirk (F) and De Panne (B).
 
We went on to Dunkirk hoping to have lunch there, but everywhere seemed to be closed. We think maybe because it was Bastille Day.

So we headed off to the tunnel and caught a slightly earlier shuttle back to the UK....

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THE END
 
Looks like you had a great time there Gizzy. Would it have been possible for the trip do be done by rail? I'm thinking of a future European rail trip for a couple of years time.
 
Paul M said:
Looks like you had a great time there Gizzy. Would it have been possible for the trip do be done by rail? I'm thinking of a future European rail trip for a couple of years time.
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Yes Paul, I guess you could get the train to KX, walk to St Pancras next door and get a Eurostar to Brussels. We did look at this option.

Then get a train from Brussels to Oostende. Hotels are quite expensive there but Westende was around half the price. Easy to get to by the Coast Tram.

If you wanted to get to Ypres, I think you have to change at Brugge and another station to get there.

For Maldegem, get a train to Ghent and then to Ecklo....
 
Gizzy said:
Yes Paul, I guess you could get the train to KX, walk to St Pancras next door and get a Eurostar to Brussels. We did look at this option.

Then get a train from Brussels to Oostende. Hotels are quite expensive there but Westende was around half the price. Easy to get to by the Coast Tram.

If you wanted to get to Ypres, I think you have to change at Brugge and another station to get there.

For Maldegem, get a train to Ghent and then to Ecklo....
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Cheers, Gizzy, its for future planning. If you're lucky with the trains, and catch a Thameslink, you don't even need to change stations in London. It always gives me quite a lift thinking that from our little tinpot town, you can get to Paris or Brussels well within 4 hours
 
Paul M said:
Cheers, Gizzy, its for future planning. If you're lucky with the trains, and catch a Thameslink, you don't even need to change stations in London. It always gives me quite a lift thinking that from our little tinpot town, you can get to Paris or Brussels well within 4 hours
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Yep, for us we need to change trains at Cambridge to do that :nod::nod: particularly when aiming for Gatwick
 
Paul M said:
Cheers, Gizzy, its for future planning. If you're lucky with the trains, and catch a Thameslink, you don't even need to change stations in London. It always gives me quite a lift thinking that from our little tinpot town, you can get to Paris or Brussels well within 4 hours
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Reminds me of Trotters Trading;

London, Paris, Brussels, Royston....
 
Rhinochugger said:
Yep, for us we need to change trains at Cambridge to do that :nod::nod: particularly when aiming for Gatwick
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Never done the through London trip on Thameslink, despite my son living near Croydon, although Mizzy is talking about a weekend in Brighton since finding out we can get a direct service there....
 
Gizzy said:
Never done the through London trip on Thameslink, despite my son living near Croydon, although Mizzy is talking about a weekend in Brighton since finding out we can get a direct service there....
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Have done it on both routes - before London Bridge re-build and after :nod::nod:
 
Gizzy said:
Never done the through London trip on Thameslink, despite my son living near Croydon, although Mizzy is talking about a weekend in Brighton since finding out we can get a direct service there....
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I did the direct to Brighton, from Huntingdon a few years ago, or maybe slightly more than a few years ago.
 
Gizzy said:
Never done the through London trip on Thameslink, despite my son living near Croydon, although Mizzy is talking about a weekend in Brighton since finding out we can get a direct service there....
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It's a long trip. It seems that, although it's a pretty fast train to St Pancras, after that it stops at pretty much every station on the way down. It also seems to have reliability problems. But it is a trip I fancy doing one day
 
Paul M said:
It's a long trip. It seems that, although it's a pretty fast train to St Pancras, after that it stops at pretty much every station on the way down. It also seems to have reliability problems. But it is a trip I fancy doing one day
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Well, you have to think what the service was intended to provide. It's not intended to compete with express to London/tube or taxi/express to the south coast - it's intended to provide a direct route across London. What is interesting is that, following the introduction of automatic control in the Farringdon tunnel, they have been able to minimise the bottleneck effect and widen the fan of places served either side of the Thames.

London's cross-train problems arise principally from the fact that when the steaming, snorting beast was first tamed and capable of pulling trains, the City Corporation did not want the noisy, smelly things within the city limits - that explains the location of all the termini on the periphery of the city.

Only now, with Thameslink and the Elizabeth Line have we really got over their questionable decision.

I wasn't aware of any reliability problems with Thameslink - it may be driver availability issues, which is fairly common across the industry (and many other countries) since the pandemic. They were the first mainline units designed as total walkthrough and essentially aren't operated as multiple units, running singly - they're 10-car and 12-car (I think)
 
Rhinochugger said:
Well, you have to think what the service was intended to provide. It's not intended to compete with express to London/tube or taxi/express to the south coast - it's intended to provide a direct route across London. What is interesting is that, following the introduction of automatic control in the Farringdon tunnel, they have been able to minimise the bottleneck effect and widen the fan of places served either side of the Thames.

London's cross-train problems arise principally from the fact that when the steaming, snorting beast was first tamed and capable of pulling trains, the City Corporation did not want the noisy, smelly things within the city limits - that explains the location of all the termini on the periphery of the city.

Only now, with Thameslink and the Elizabeth Line have we really got over their questionable decision.

I wasn't aware of any reliability problems with Thameslink - it may be driver availability issues, which is fairly common across the industry (and many other countries) since the pandemic. They were the first mainline units designed as total walkthrough and essentially aren't operated as multiple units, running singly - they're 10-car and 12-car (I think)
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700/0 Class are 8 car and 700/1 Class are 12 cars. Made by Siemens, Germany....
 
JimmyB said:
I did the direct to Brighton, from Huntingdon a few years ago, or maybe slightly more than a few years ago.
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These days the Peterborough Thameslink services all go to Horsham, I tend to change at Blackfriars if I want a Brighton train as the view is much nicer than at Pancras, Farringdon, City TL these Stations all have guaranteed same platform change. London Bridge should be same platform change but has been known to be a different one.
Gizzy Gizzy indeed you can get a through service and it is a lot less faf than going via Victoria. Just get a coffee before you start, tis a long run with no refreshments on board.
 
dunnyrail said:
These days the Peterborough Thameslink services all go to Horsham,
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Both of which are new destinations since the London Bridge upgrade.

London Bridge supposedly has two dedicated Thamesllnk platforms - the intention being that with the Bermondsey dive-under, there are no conflicting train movements.

Why am I such an expert? I spent three years commuting past the two construction sites while lodging at Hither Green and working in Hammersmith ;);)
 
Rhinochugger said:
I wasn't aware of any reliability problems with Thameslink - it may be driver availability issues, which is fairly common across the industry (and many other countrie
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The service is usually fine in the Northern half, but we've seen a lot of cancelled trains the other side of London. Several times we've waited in vain for Thameslink trains south of the river.
 
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