On 14 th November, after 11 years of construction, a new British high speed rail link and Eurostar terminal opened for business, St Pancras.

It’s Britain’s largest rail investment to date, costing £5.9bn and will operate trains from London to Paris and Brussels. Eurostar, which operates the trains, said journey times will be cut by an average of 25 minutes.

The Eurostar will no longer run from Waterloo International and will run on a new 25-mile section of track called High Speed 1. The trains will pass through new stations at Stratford and Ebbsfleet at 186mph. The journey from London to Paris will now take just over two hours, and London to Brussels will take 1hr 41mins. On average, there will be 17 trains each day from London to Paris.

The station has 15 platforms, six for international journeys via Ebbsfleet International and the existing station at Ashford International, and three for the new high-speed domestic services to and from Kent due to start in December 2009. In 2009, with the launch of high-speed domestic services, London will only be 17 minutes away from Ebbsfleet and travelling further afield, journeys to Nottingham will take just over two hours and to get to York will take 2hrs 52 mins.
The development around Ebbsfleet International by Land Securities means Ebbsfleet Valley will be transformed into a mixed-use community of homes, offices and leisure facilities. Other developments already up and running include a new residential and business community near Dartford called The Bridge, and new housing projects in Gravesend, Greenhithe and near Bluewater.