15/04/2008

Passengers buying through rail tickets with East Midlands Trains and Eurostar are helping to swell the number of people travelling to Europe via rail to an all time high.

Eurostar has reported a 21.3% increase in passenger numbers as the opening of St Pancras International station and debut of a £5.8bn high-speed link through south England lured more passengers from the region to travel to the continent by rail.

Some 2.17 million customers travelled with Eurostar between London, Paris and Brussels in the first three months of the year, an increase of more than 21.3% on the same period in 2007.

And the number of passengers whose journey to Europe starts with East Midlands Trains, part of Stagecoach Group, has shot up in the past few months.

Simon Montague, Eurostar's director of communication, said the service was benefiting from shorter journey times thanks to the high-speed link. And more customers from around Britain are travelling due to the location of St. Pancras International, which is better connected than the train operator's former base at Waterloo.

"We have seen the number of travellers from the East Midlands and Yorkshire more than double in the first three months since we started running 186mph services on High Speed 1,” he said.

David Horne, Commercial Director for East Midlands Trains, said “Sharing our London terminal with Eurostar certainly makes continental rail travel from South Yorkshire and the East Midlands very attractive.

“All that you need to do is change platform and with total journey times from some of our key cities at around four hours, and through tickets from just £77 return, I am sure we will see growth and demand continuing to rise.”

Through tickets to the continent with East Midlands Trains and Eurostar start from as little as £77 for a return trip from Derby, Leicester, Nottingham, Kettering or Sheffield to Paris, Brussels and Disneyland Resort Paris, via St. Pancras International.

Tickets can be purchased online at eastmidlandstrains.co.uk and collected from principal stations on the East Midlands Trains network.

ENDS

For media enquiries, please contact:
East Midlands Trains Press Office
Tel: 01332 262010

For more information about Stagecoach Group, contact:
Steve Stewart, Director of Corporate Communications
Tel: 01738 442111 or mobile 07764 774680
email: steven.stewart@stagecoachgroup.com

NOTES TO EDITORS

Stagecoach Group

Stagecoach Group is a leading international public transport group, with extensive bus and rail operations in the UK and North America. Stagecoach operates South West Trains, the UK’s biggest commuter rail network with nearly 1,700 trains a day out of London Waterloo. In addition, Stagecoach has a 49% shareholding in Virgin Rail Group, which operates passenger rail services on the West Coast main line. Stagecoach is also Britain’s biggest tram operator, running systems in both Sheffield and Manchester.

East Midlands Trains

East Midlands Trains operates high-speed long distance services from London St. Pancras to Sheffield, Derby and Nottingham and regional services between Nottingham and Derby – Lincoln – Cleethorpes – Skegness, and between Derby and Crewe - Matlock and Norwich and Liverpool.

The franchise started on 11 November 2007 and will run until 31 March 2015, the last year and four months of which will be conditional upon achieving pre-set performance targets.

Highlights of improvements include faster journey times from Sheffield and Leicester to London from 2008, better performance, more seats, train refurbishment, investment at Derby’s Etches Park train maintenance depot, a centralised information and security centre, more car parking spaces and two new stations – at East Midlands Parkway and Corby.