Day 7 - Travel from Amsterdam to Birmingham

My first pint in England was a Guinness

We had to get up very early this morning and quickly checked out, picking up a packed breakfast that had been prepared for us because the restaurant wasn't yet open.  We walked to the station and to the Eurostar check in, in good time.  The facilities at Amsterdam are not large enough for Eurostar. We had to go through security, EU passport control as well as a cursory UK passport control before entering a small lounge area which was not big enough to contain a full train load of passengers.  It was the worst departure lounge I have ever been in, towards the end there wasn't really enough room for people to even stand in the area. It was made worse by Eurostar demanding long check in times.

The empty train arrived at the last minute because this platform, No. 15, is a through platform used by many other trains. Our seats were quite comfortable but the travel across Holland and Belgium was extremely slow and cumbersome. We stood at Rotterdam about 10 minutes to pick up a few passengers and about 35 minutes at Brussels just to board passengers.

From Brussels we finally entered the high-speed line but the ride was somewhat rough.  We were then stopped at the entrance to the Channel Tunnel waiting permission to enter the tunnel because of a problem with a train ahead of us.  This meant that only one of the two tunnels could be used and we waited about 40 minutes to get entry to the tunnel.

On the English side we again reached the normal high speeds, I was happy to spot briefly an Oast house, once a common feature of the Kent countryside.  The ride quality was much better in England. Arrival at St. Pancras was about an hour late but the one surprise here was that there was no passport check. 

This trip was pretty much like an airline trip with very poor departure experience. The journey through Holland and Belgium was slow, arduous and very boring. I wouldn't recommend it.

We walked straight out and over to Euston and found that the next train to Birmingham International was the 12:49 and caught that. This is a stopping train but it was the only one that would allow us to get to Birmingham International without changing at Birmingham New Street. With the potential for strikes around this time we felt it better that we should go directly rather than chance changing companies. 

The ride through the English countryside in full sunshine was delightful. Every so often a small church would come into view, maybe surrounded by a small group of houses. There were partridges in the fields along with sheep. Very pleasant.

Our train stopped at many stations along the way but we arrived pretty much on time. There was a short walk through the National Exhibition Centre to get to our hotel, the Moxy, which is situated about five minutes walk from Hall 5 where the model railway show starts tomorrow.

Comments

  1. MarkNovember 25, 2022 at 9:20 PM

    Were the departure delays in the overstuffed departure lounge due to Brexit?

    ReplyDelete

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