Stratford International

It was reported that LCR had impressive plans to increase both patronage and revenue for European Passenger Services (EPS) – at the time, EPS was a loss-making service. As part of this scheme, the company proposed laying a double-track connection between the CTRL and the West Coast Main Line, during an era when daytime passenger and overnight sleeper services to the continent from provincial cities were still very much on the agenda. The double-track link formed a St Pancras avoiding line; thus, Eurostar services emanating from Birmingham and Manchester could bypass the terminus, eliminating an inconvenient reversal manoeuvre. This was essentially the raison d’être of the international station at Stratford: it was to be the London interchange point for these services, which meant that trains departing from St Pancras did not have to endure a stop only four minutes out from their starting point. It was envisaged that Paris could be reached from Birmingham in four hours, and from Manchester in five hours. At the time, the Government had reserved capacity on the proposed CTRL for up to eight domestic services per hour in the peak period, in each direction. LCR also committed itself to retain Waterloo as a second London hub, from where journey times would be reduced by twenty minutes once the CTRL had opened. It was anticipated that construction work on the high-speed route would commence late in 1997, and be completed within a timeframe of five and a half years. The first trains were planned to start running along it in 2002. On 23rd January 1997, LCR submitted an application to Parliament for the construction of Stratford International and the double-track link between St Pancras and the West Coast Main Line. The building works were estimated to cost £68 million, for both the station and the link line.

Things were not going at all well for LCR. Despite the company’s ambitious plans for an improved EPS operation, existing Eurostar services to and from Waterloo International were still seeing far fewer passengers than the number originally forecast. Consequently, this then cast doubt on the viability of operating Eurostar services to the United Kingdom’s provincial cities. More bad news was soon on the way. In June 1995, it was announced that ‘’Nightstar’’ overnight sleeper services were to begin in the following year, running on the below routes:

• London to Amsterdam

• London to Dortmund and Frankfurt

• Glasgow to Paris

• Manchester to Paris

• Plymouth to Paris

• Swansea to Paris

Come 1996, nothing happened. This was partly because the existing daytime Eurostar service was failing to generate the levels of traffic envisaged; hence, serious doubt was cast on the profitability of the operation. Matters had also not been helped by delays in finding a contractor to build the brand new fleet of sleeper vehicles required for the services. GEC Alsthom was finally selected to fulfil this role, and construction of the vehicles began in earnest, but cost overruns of the entire project saw LCR put the ‘’Nightstar’’ scheme on hold in 1997. The company found itself with severe money troubles and to alleviate this, a contract for a third party to actually operate existing Eurostar services was put out to tender in April 1998. Two concerns competed for the contract: the ‘’Virgin Group’’ and ‘’Inter-Capital & Regional Rail Limited’’ (ICRR). In June 1998, the latter had been announced as the preferred bidder, and the contract, designed to run until 2010, was signed in November. A report commissioned in 1998 suggested that the Regional Eurostar services would not be able to run without public subsidy. In addition, the market was said to be limited for these services north of London and outside of the southeast, and journey times may be too long to attract anyone away from low-cost air travel. On 9th July 1999, it was formally announced that both ‘’Nightstar’’ and Regional Eurostar schemes were dead.

Revisions to the CTRL Bill of 1996 and LCR’s financial problems made clear that there was no way the entire high-speed line would be in operation by 2002. Construction of the St Pancras to Southfleet section of the route alone did not commence until September 2001, and cancellation of Regional Eurostar services left an air of uncertainty over Stratford International. The station was certainly going to be built, but would any services actually stop there? Should they not, over a decade of campaigning for an East London regeneration, instigated by the CTRL, would be wasted. Stratford, however, dropped in lucky, and it later became clear that major redevelopment work would take place around the proposed station site, at a much faster rate than any CTRL-inspired scheme could ever have hoped for. On Wednesday 6th July 2005, it was officially announced that London was to host the 2012 Olympic Games. This would involve constructing a brand new Olympic stadium and village, and the extensive Stratford brownfield site – which encompassed the international station – was earmarked as the ideal location for the development. The fortunes of Stratford International had been revived, or so it initially seemed. Construction of the concrete box at Stratford formed CTRL contract No. 230, awarded to ''Kværner Construction'' and valued at £105 million.

On 20th April 2006, major construction works at Stratford International were deemed formally complete. The station was an isolated spectacle, residing in the centre of barren lands on the verge of being redeveloped into the £4000 million ‘’Stratford City’’ for the Olympics. Unfortunately, the Eurostar situation had not improved: the Chief Executive of LCR announced that international services would not be calling at Stratford when the CTRL was scheduled to open, in November 2007. In fact, the first services would not use the station until December 2009, and these would only be high-speed domestic trains from Kent, rather than from the continent. Indeed, as earlier mentioned, Stratford International was, at this point in time, in the middle of nowhere. Between then and 2012, any passengers alighting at the station would simply be confronted by a giant building site. To add to the misery, there would be a walk of at least 500 yards between international and National Rail stations (as of present, a courtesy bus service runs between international and domestic stations).

Despite the fact that the station has been tightly squeezed into a concrete-lined box, the layout at Stratford is surprisingly complicated. The concrete box in which the station is located stretches for 1075 metres, is 24 metres deep, opens out to 55 metres at its widest point, and narrows to 35 metres at the tunnel portals. Four platform surfaces, of prefabricated concrete construction, are in evidence: two dedicated to international services (should they ever stop) and the remaining pair exclusively serving domestic services. ‘’International’’ platforms are located at the edges of the ‘’box’’, ‘’up’’ and ‘’down’’ surfaces residing south and north of the running lines respectively. The ‘’domestic’’ platforms are centrally-located within the ‘’box’’, and form an island surface straddled by a 370-yard-long (nearly 340 metres) viaduct, which ascends with a single-track connection to the Eurostar maintenance depot at Temple Mills.

As mentioned elsewhere on the website, conversion of Waterloo International into an integral part of the adjacent domestic station was partly hampered by the fact that the platforms there were built to the lower European profile to serve the Eurostar formations. This is exactly the same case at both Stratford and Ebbsfleet International stations: those platforms which are designated for the international services are built to a lower height than their domestic counterparts, the latter of which rise up to the same level found on National Rail metals. Come the London 2012 Olympics, it was envisaged that all four platform surfaces at Stratford International – domestic and international – would be used by ‘’Javelin’’ services, ferrying passengers to and from the Games. As already mentioned, the ‘’international’’ platforms have been built to a lower European profile than their ‘’domestic’’ counterparts, thus in order for ‘’Javelin’’ services to utilise these surfaces, it was planned to install temporary decking, to bring them up to standard National Rail height.

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