Two Eurostar trips - aren't I lucky

This week I've had two Eurostar trips, one to Paris and one to Bruxelles.  

Th Paris trip was a bit irritating because the morning train from Ashford got me in to Paris far too early, though it left at the right time, while the train from Ebbsfleet arrived at the right time but the return left a bit late.   I opted for Ebbsfleet only because the net wait was less.

Ebbsfleet is only 20 minutes on the train from Ashford but, of course, peak trains don't stop there so it would have meant me going to Stratford and back again - I could just as well have gone from St Pancras.   So I drove to Ebbsfleet instead.

The car parks were full but not that many people were getting on the Paris train so I guess its starting to fill up with commuters - at £8 a day it's par for the course as far as car park charges go.

The Paris train was quite full but on time - I had no complaints apart from the needless check in and security issues.

My lunch (and jolly nice it was, too) was close to Port Royal so a simple trip on RER B.   The RER now looks distinctly grubby, even shabby, only the older Thameslink trains look anything like as bad, and even then, they don't have the graffiti.

Gare du Nord Eurostar terminal has always been cramped and although they have eked out every bit of space it still is cramped, not made any better as the train was full.

Once again the trip was smooth and on time and no real problems driving home.

The Bruxelles trip was from Ashford.   They have recently changed the time of the Bruxelles train to make it a bit less convenient.   It now leaves at 0725 instead of 0625, which means you can't guarantee getting to a meeting in the Euro Quarter until at least 1030.   Sill, it is the first train of the day and has become an all stations train between London and Bruxelles, so I couldn't have got there any sooner.

There were, or so it appeared, a lot more people at Ashford than went to Paris from Ebbsfleet.   Always difficult to compare but I think that shows that Richard Brown was wrong to try and give up Ashford.   And the train was full.   The travel agent had, bless his little cotton socks, booked me in coach 1 - the back carriage - going out and in coach 18 - again the back carriage - coming back just so that I would have the longest walks at the end of the journey.   At Ashford I changed my seat into the front half but there were only two free seats in the front five carriages to choose from.   Yes, it was a Monday morning train, but I still think that shows that they should be putting on more trains.

We were 10 minutes late getting into Bruxelles which meant I didn't get into my meeting until nearly 11, after circumnavigating the building sites around Gare Schuman.

Coming back I also changed seats.   Even easier as there were quite a few empty seats in my carriage.

Once again, it is the boarding procedures which are appalling: the wholly superfluous security checks, they do it because they can, not because it's needed, an the long queues at the UK border force checks - they really do make it difficult and unfriendly to get in to the UK, even for UK residents.