Well, once again i looked at this thread thinking someone was offering classes in how to take the Eurostar. Not so unlikely,as someone in British Columbia offered classes on how to plan a holiday in France - and has since developed a whole business based on rentals, reservations, etc.

Sorry I can't add to the comments on the various Eurostar classes, but it does liven up a rather cool and rainy day here in France.

You mean Sarkozy's inauguration parade does liven up your dreary day?

RM67, I don't believe I've heard the term "champers" before. What is it? Champaigne, or something else entirely?

Well, I'm shocked.

The number of people on this board who know more than it's decent to know about the minutiae of European railways. And you're all making the kind of schoolboy howler that would get you ostracised from every trainspotting society from Crewe to Willesden Junction

All proper railways in civilised Europe have the same <b> standard gauge </b> At 4' 8.5&quot;, there's whole pile of hokery on the Internet about how it comes from the Roman Standard Chariot. (try measuring the grooves in any paved Roman road to see what a load of cobblers that is). The Standard Gauge is the space between the two rails. It certainly wasn't standard throughout Britain, and - again as ever schoolboy once had beaten into him - the Great Western Railway kept on building wider tracks till 1892.

That's a totally different thing from the <b> loading gauge </b>: the maximum permitted width and height of a train. That varies with the phases of the moon. It's 9' wide by 11' high at the sides and 13' 6&quot; at the centre in Britain: 10'2&quot; x 10'5&quot;x 14'0.5&quot; on the Berne (standard European) gauge. To add to the complications, the Channel Tunnel has an even wider loading gauge, to accommodate the waggons for the cars, but the rails to and from the tunnel conform to the national norm.

So, yes: TGV's are wider than Channel Tunnel Eurostars.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'll get back to my vintage Ian Allan collection. There's a picture of a 1955 3-6-3 Deltic I've been drooling over for weeks

Don't forget your anorak, dear.

&lt;So, yes: TGV's are wider than Channel Tunnel Eurostars.&gt;

but does that mean seats are smaller or aisles are smaller? perhaps since you didn't, allegedly, go to public school, i wouldn't expect you would probably know the answer to that?

Ian Allen's is a regular stop for me in London at the one on Marsh Lane by Waterloo - maybe someone in there would know the answer or certainly have some book with diagrams and measurements.

Well, here's my embarrassing admission.

I've never travelled anything BUT first class on the Eurostar or on TGVs. Rarely use either - car or plane family when it comes to trips to France - and there's always been some deal going.

Both seem to be the same: both, oddly, a tad narrower and plastickier than the HS125 first class that till recently trundled up to Liverpool and still links London with the Cotswolds. And the Eurostar food always strikes me as about what the BA Glasgow shuttle used to offer.

Absent a deal, I'd never fork out for first on Eurostar EXCEPT on the nine-hour marathon to the ski resorts. And that's mainly to keep away from the hordes rehearsing for the apres-ski.

That's a totally different thing from the loading gauge : the maximum permitted width and height of a train. That varies with the phases of the moon. It's 9' wide by 11' high at the sides and 13' 6&quot; at the centre in Britain: 10'2&quot; x 10'5&quot;x 14'0.5&quot; on the Berne (standard European) gauge. To add to the complications, the Channel Tunnel has an even wider loading gauge, to accommodate the waggons for the cars, but the rails to and from the tunnel conform to the national norm.

So flanner stats say that TGV and European trains can be 1' 2&quot; wider than Eurostar trains - divide by 4 and that makes each seat about 3.5 inches narrower on Eurostar - assuming aisles are similar sizes so food carts can get thru.

But it seems the new Channel Tunnel (Chunnel) Rail Link to St Pancras would be built to the Berne standards to allow Continental trains like TGVs to blast into Paris. But suppose Eurostar group probably made new tracks to old standards to prevent this?

&lt;All proper railways in civilised Europe have the same standard gauge At 4' 8.5&quot;,&gt;

so the railways in Finland, Spain and Portugal not to mention Russia, so called broad gauge are not in countries that are civilized - russia perhaps but the others. Indeed Finland seems the ultimate of a civilized society, behind, of course, the English.

Don't you love the way that only things f.uk approves of are &quot;proper&quot; and &quot;civilised&quot;?

yeh i do because he obviously is saying it in a self-deprecating way - that old sly English humour so i wouldn't take his bluster seriously

MKE - Yes, champers is champagne.

Flanner - 'Absent a deal' 'I've never travelled anything but first' - what do you sound like?!!!!

he also says he's rarely taken the London Paris Eurostar but the ski train London-Alps and for this long travail he and i perhaps too would find 1st class much more tolerable. And at times the Leisure 1st class tickets may not cost much more than a standard class ticket. No one needs to defend flanner.uk, believe me but...