High-speed route
Eurostar London–Paris
London → Paris · England · France
Eurostar in pictures
Photographs by their authors, hosted on Wikimedia Commons · tap through for the licence
- Distance
- 492 km
- Fastest time
- 2 h 18 min
- Average speed
- 214 km/h
- Top speed
- 300 km/h
- Train
- e320 · Class 374
- Countries
- England, France
- In service since
- 1994
- Riders per year
- ≈ 7.5M
- Runs
- roughly hourly, about 15× daily each way
Figures are published values, not live data · corrections log
Drops 75 m below the sea through the 50.5 km Channel Tunnel, 37.9 km of it under the seabed, the longest undersea stretch of any rail tunnel.
Board beneath William Barlow’s great blue train shed at St Pancras and minutes later you are racing across the Kent countryside on HS1, Britain’s only dedicated high-speed line. After the brief darkness of the crossing, the train stretches out over the beet plains of Picardy on LGV Nord, running city centre to city centre faster than any airline manages door to door. It is the service that made day-tripping between two capitals ordinary: breakfast by the Thames, lunch on the Left Bank.
How this line was checked
- Line drawn from OpenStreetMap relation 2905798 — the same nodes OpenStreetMap holds for this railway, thinned to within under 25 m of them
- Checked against OpenStreetMap: the whole line lies on real track, a median 6 m from it
- Checked against the running timetable via ÖBB Scotty: our line passes within 28 m of every station EUR 9004 calls at (the planner's own shape was too coarse to measure a line against)
- Wikipedia has an article for this line
- See for yourself: open this line on the map with OpenStreetMap's own railway drawn underneath it
Along the way
- St Pancras International’s Barlow train shed
- Medway crossing and the Kent Downs
- the Channel Tunnel plunge
- Picardy beet plains on LGV Nord
- Gare du Nord’s neoclassical façade
How long is the Eurostar?
The Eurostar runs 492 km from London to Paris. It runs through England and France.
How long does the Eurostar take?
The fastest scheduled journey is 2 h 18 min for the 492 km. That is an average of 214 km/h end to end. The line's top service speed is 300 km/h.
Who runs the Eurostar?
Eurostar, with e320, Class 374.
How old is the Eurostar?
The line has been in service since 1994. That is the year the atlas dates it from: for a modern brand running over an older railway, it is the railway's date, not the brand's.
How often does the Eurostar run?
Roughly hourly, about 15× daily each way.
View on the world railway map →More high-speed routes
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France’s original 1981 LGV forms the first leg; today the TGV holds 320 km/h nearly all the way to the Mediterranean.
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More train routes in United Kingdom · France · England.
Planning this trip? Journey time & direct trains: London → Paris · Paris → London.