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Twinkle, Twinkle, Eurostar

“CHUNNEL” might be a word in the dictionary, but it’s colloquial usage never graduated beyond the generation that found it so clever. English prefers taking nifty hybrid terms from the streets, and in French, Chunnel sounds like a cheap Chanel knockoff, not a grand engineering feat. Today, the travelers who use the rail link between Paris and London simply call it “Eurostar”.

Riding through the longest undersea tunnel in the world makes me feel old because I still find it so new and amazing. The whole experience seems so Jules Vern-esque, especially the vague minutes of darkness when passengers are informed that we are now travelling some twenty-odd leagues under the sea. Yet the artificial lighting shows off all that is dated about Eurostar: the colour scheme is tired, the stained seats look tatty, and the formerly futuristic design now befits an amusement park ride. Exiting in London reveals painful dents on the front and side of the train, like the damaged hood of a teenager’s car. Indeed, the Chunnel opened thirteen years ago and my head must tick back through Mission Impossible movies in order to remember the first one I saw as a teenager--the one where the helicopter chases the train through the Chunnel.

On 14 November, Eurostar will leave Waterloo station for a new international terminus at London’s St. Pancras Station. The revitalized station will be the epicentre of modish, modern travel, so say the adverts. The transition is part of the new Railteam service, a fast transportation network connecting London with major continental hubs. Christened High-speed Europe, the rail system is a tad euphemistic (Italy, Portugal, and Spain are currently off the grid, as is Scandinavia). The new trains will travel at “European speeds” of 300kph and highlight how horrifically slow and dysfunctional the rest of British rail actually is. Travel time from London to Paris will be cut down to 2 hours 15 minutes, and taking the train from say--Birmingham to Frankfurt--will become a viable alternative to flying.

Eurostar is just one of many trains that will travel on this newer, faster track called High-Speed 1. Given the increase in number of cross-channel destinations, the term “Eurostar” might vanish from our lexicon completely. Travellers will merely take the “high-speed” and the chunnel that makes it all possible will be taken for granted--like Manhattan’s crowded Lincoln Tunnel or the Iron Bridge over Severn Gorge. For those of us who pine for slow-speed Europe, ‘tis a wistful thought--almost a personal affront. Out with the old . . .