Britons Get First ‘Chunnel’ Ride in Speedy Three Hours to Paris

The Eurostar high-speed train completed its first commercial journey through the tunnel under the English Channel on Monday--a hitch-free trip to Paris in just under three hours, several minutes ahead of schedule.

Later, a similar train departed London’s Waterloo Station to carry its fare-paying passengers through the Channel Tunnel--or “Chunnel”--and on to Brussels. And the first train from Paris to London arrived at Waterloo on Monday morning--also on time.

The new service will be twice a day in both directions at first, and gradually increase to several trips daily between London and Paris and London and Brussels.

Aboard the first 794-seat France-bound train, high-ranking officials breathed a collective sigh of relief as they debarked at Paris’ Gare du Nord: The first official journey for ordinary passengers was not plagued with the stoppages that delayed earlier preview trips.

There had been some concern that the train would be late when it lost five minutes navigating the congested South London commuter routes. But it made up the time on the high-speed section of track in France.

The train, with engineers Robert Priston, 34, and Lionel Stevenson, 36, at the throttle, entered the Channel Tunnel at 9:40 a.m. and emerged in France 20 minutes later.

Priston described the trip as the “ultimate train drivers’ job.”

Passenger John Harper from Cornwall, traveling with his family, led the applause as the train in France hit its maximum speed of 186 m.p.h. near Lille. “Wonderful,” he told reporters. “Better than expected.”

The long-delayed, multibillion-dollar project was one of the engineering feats of contemporary times and permits passengers to ride nonstop in three hours from the center of London to central stations in Paris and Brussels.

Richard Edgley, managing director of Eurostar, said passenger response had been “uniformly good,” adding: “They have all told us how relaxing they found the journey and how much they were looking forward to using it again. We are confident it will become the most popular way to travel.”

Prices for the round-trip journey from London to Paris range from about $152 to about $312 in first-class.