The Daily Telegraph - Saturday - Travel
All aboard! Take the fast track to the Alps
A new high-speed, direct rail service from London to Moûtiers lets Peter Hardy slide seamlessly from the train to the ski slopes
‘Welcome everyone,” came the voice over the loudspeaker as the doors hissed shut and our Eurostar powered slowly, without fanfare, out of St Pancras station. “This is the very first ski train of the winter, direct to Moûtiers and Bourg-SaintMaurice in the French Alps… and we’re finally on our way!”
The two towns are the railheads for a stack of French ski resorts including Méribel, Courchevel, La Plagne, Les Arcs, Val d’Isère and Tignes. The fact that our journey, beginning just after 8pm on the final Friday of January, was starting six weeks and a technical 15 minutes behind schedule was of zero consequence to the 310 excited British snow fiends of all ages on board.
Most were probably unaware that they were present at a momentous landmark in the 159-year history of rail journeys from London to the Alps. We were travelling from London on a French charter train organised by a French tour operator called Travelski Express – a complete newcomer to the embattled British ski market.
If you’re looking to shrink your carbon footprint by not flying, this is the way to go. Be warned, however, that it’s not the best option for families with small children – unless they are able to sleep in their seats – as there are no couchettes. My fellow Express passengers were hardcore skiers looking to maximise their time on the slopes, all with their own skis or snowboards.
Sam Harris and his wife had taken a taxi all the way from their home in Dorset to St Pancras, and were going to Méribel. This was the easy bit. “We only booked 10 days ago,” said Sam, “but I’d always wanted to go [to the slopes] by train. The drive to London was the worst part. It took four hours!”
When Thomas Cook organised the first train to the Alps in 1863, top speed was 12mph, and heating, meals, and other facilities were in short supply. Exactly 100 years later, I was a teenager travelling to Austria on an Erna
Low ski charter train featuring a “disco carriage” powered by a record player mounted on gimbals to counteract the shortcomings of the ancient rolling stock. Each time we crossed a set of points, the stylus screeched across the vinyl, drowning out the lyrics of Chubby Checker’s Let’s Twist Again.
The maiden outing of the Travelski Express was an altogether more sleek and subdued affair as we sped through the dark Kent countryside and slid seamlessly beneath the English Channel.
Seats on the weekly charter train come in Standard class and the more expensive Standard First: the former offering a bar and snacks; the latter providing a light dinner, breakfast and semi-reclining seats. But there is no escaping the fact that, whichever option you go for, you will have to sit up all night and grab what sleep you can: so bring a pillow.
The reward of travelling by train on a ski holiday is the opportunity to carry your skis, boots and luggage free of charge and grab a full day’s extra skiing in a week – seven days on snow instead of the six if you go by air. The return journey is by day on Saturday.
The entire experience proved to be hassle-free: no airport-style queues and immigration delays followed by threehour coach rides. Most of the resort transfers from the two rail hubs are a 30- to 45-minute drive, operated by Travelski and included in the package.
Over the past 25 years, thousands of skiers have travelled in this way by scheduled Eurostar. I was on the first of those services to Moûtiers in 1997, when a brass band greeted us on arrival. “I have seen the future of ski travel,” I wrote in these pages, “and it’s by train.”
However, train prices failed to compete with budget flights, limiting the rail ski market. In July 2020, Eurostar announced that its much-loved scheduled Friday night and Saturday daytime ski trains from and to St Pancras would not run the following winter. It blamed the pandemic and the difficulty of maskwearing over such a long period of travel, but it was more likely linked to Eurostar’s difficult financial situation.
For a while it seemed as if direct services to the French Alps had passed into history. Enter Guillaume de Marcillac, the boss of Travelski Express – the
French tour operator arm of Compagnie des Alpes. CdA owns the lift systems in eight key French ski resorts and has a stake in at least five others. With the consequences of Brexit and Covid reducing the number of ski holidays offered this winter by UK operators by up to 80 per cent, CdA needed to find a way of luring the British back.
Travelski launched in London last autumn with reasonably priced rail holidays – accommodation, transfers, and lift passes included – to an initial seven French destinations. Importantly, unlike the old direct Eurostar scheduled service or indirect routes, you can’t travel on the train unless you have booked a holiday with Travelski.
Its first trains should have run before Christmas 2021, but France temporarily banned all but essential British visitors. So, on January 28, I joined the first train as it finally cruised gently through the night towards the mountains.
I had brought along a bottle of champagne to toast the return of ski holidays by rail – but I had failed to read the small print and last saw it disappearing into a bin at St Pancras’s security. But perhaps the ban was wise: because passengers had dozed rather than partied, we were clear-headed and exhilarated when we alighted at Moûtiers shortly before 6am, where we were treated to a second inclusive breakfast (the first had been on board at 4.20am) in the station café, before being herded on to coaches. Dawn broke to reveal snowclad peaks on a perfect bluebird day.
My destination, half an hour away, was the three-star Belambra Club Le Terra Nova in La Plagne. My room had yet to be cleaned, but a quick change of clothes in a courtesy room and I was ready for the first lifts to open at 9am. Tired? Yes – but on a day like this in perfect weather, sleep could wait.