Eurostar’s terminus at Paris Gare du Nord is to be tripled in size at a cost of €600 million.
This is welcome news for the many Eurostar travellers using one of this city’s mainline rail termini.
IRJ reports the plans have finally been confirmed despite opposition.
Plans for the €600m renovation of Paris’ Gare du Nord station have been approved, despite resistance from city officials.https://t.co/F2j2PcBjsq
— IRJ (@railjournal) July 15, 2020
The work is set to be completed in time for the 2023 Rugby World Cup, and for the 2024 Olympics which will take place in the French capital.
The mainline section of Paris-Nord has become ever busier since the arrival of Eurostar and Thalys (the high speed service to Amsterdam and Brussels).
Expansion will allow Paris-Nord to add more capacity along with shopping, entertainment facilities and so on.
In fact space at Paris-Nord has been limited for a long time. Back in the early 1990s passenger handling facilities for Eurostar had to be located on a separate level.
As regular Eurostar customers will know although Paris-Nord can cope with volumes of departing passengers during normal times, it can get seriously congested when things go wrong.
Such “things” can be as diverse as technical issues, to some travellers returning to the UK with a wartime ‘souvenir’.
Some of the worst disruption was experienced in 2019 when, over a period of days, French customs officials operated a “Brexit drill”.
Of course nobody can guarantee that such incidents will not happen in the future. But if they do Paris-Nord will better cope with any resulting congestion.