tops

Last leg of my current #Interrail pass today, day four of four... Amsterdam to London.

There are queues for security and passport control at the UK terminal. Well-managed, though, and the whole thing is done in about ten minutes.

The departure lounge, half-built the last time I was here, is full. Not oppressively so... some people are standing but with a squeeze everyone would probably have a seat.

For me, Lille is the best Eurostar node on the #CrossChannelRail routes right now with Amsterdam doing well and London and Brussels decent enough these days. Gare du Nord is the outlier, an utter gong show.

Mar 16 at 9:13amWeb
Show threadtopsMar 16

I'M ON THE TRANE

There is the inevitable bottleneck to get up to the platforms when the departure is announced. No different from, say, St Pancras. If you want to skip the queue you can take a hard right and use the stairs, (which takes you up to the middle of the rear half of the train FWIW).

Show threadtopsMar 16
Back in the UCFK.
Show threadMartin HoffmannMar 16
@tops Or you could just wait? It is not like you will loose your seat …
Show threadtopsMar 16
@partim absolutely ✔️
Show threadMike 🇬🇧 🇪🇺Mar 16
@tops
I'd agree with your assessments of Lille and Gare de Nord.
We had a dreadful experience at Brussels - we would rather go to Lille!
Haven't used St Pancras in recent times.
Never used the Dutch terminals
Show threadMoof!Mar 16

@MikeFromLFE @tops I’ve only used Lille and St Pancras (and Waterloo back in the day!)

St Pancras was ok, but a bit crowded in the waiting room…

Lille was pretty good all things considered

Show threadtopsMar 16
@moof @MikeFromLFE Lille, Amsterdam and Rotterdam all benefit from relatively lower passenger numbers. St Pancras has improved greatly, meanwhile, since they realised they needed to start looking at airports for their operating model rather than other railway stations.