Britain-Europe rail link zooms into new era

High-speed rail travel between Britain and continental Europe zoomed into a new era Wednesday as Eurostar trains began operating between Paris and a newly-renovated high-tech London hub.
The first Eurostar pulled out of St Pancras station headed for Paris bang on time shortly after 1100 GMT, while the popping of champagne corks awaited the first Eurostar arriving from Brussels a few minutes later.
While transport strikes gripped France, Britain's rail chiefs were celebrating for once, with the christening of St Pancras after a sweeping transformation from a crumbling Victorian terminus into a glitzy terminal.
"Today marks a new dawn for short-haul travel in Europe," said Eurostar chief executive Richard Brown. "We will carry passengers with greater speed, ease and reliability than ever before."
The first train was named Tread Lightly, after Eurostar's environmentally-friendly "green" campaign aimed at cutting its carbon dioxide emissions by 25 percent by 2012. "Our travellers will have the extra reassurance of knowing that they are making far less environmental impact compared with flying," said Brown.
The new London station opened to the public at 9:00 am, a day after services stopped at Waterloo, the station on the south side of central London which has been the British end of the line since services began in 1994.
The switch to St. Pancras, on the north side, will make it easier for passengers from the English Midlands, northern England and Scotland to connect to the continent. The move is the culmination of a 5.8-billion-pound (12.1-billion-dollar, 8.3-billion-euro), 10-year project to speed up travel to Britain from France and Belgium.
The new 68-mile (109-kilometre) High Speed 1 rail line between St. Pancras and the tunnel under the English Channel waterway enables Eurostar trains to hit their full speed of 300 kilometres (190 miles) per hour. It cuts journey times by at least 20 minutes and now links London with Paris in two hours, 15 minutes, and London with Brussels in one hour, 51 minutes.
Instead of rolling in from the coast then clunking past the rooftops and grimy railway arches of south London, passengers will speed underground across the capital after whizzing through the Kent countryside.