Comment by tgsovlerkhgsel | Hacker News Reader

Comment by tgsovlerkhgsel | Hacker News Reader

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> decently-sized Eurostar terminal

I think not having a "decently-sized terminal" is a much better approach. If I remember correctly (haven't taken a train across a non-Schengen border for a long time now, but https://travel.stackexchange.com/a/18563 seems to confirm), customs handling often happened on the train - the officers board the train at the last stop of country 1, do their passport checking etc. while the train was going to the first stop of country 2, and get off there.

Any move towards anything that would require a "terminal" as opposed to a platform will (on in the case of the Eurostar, was) just be the first step in making train travel as uncomfortable as air travel is today.

The Eurostar web site already mentions that you should be checking in 30 minutes in advance. I remember seeing the security checkpoint in London, shaking my head, and hoping this would not spread to other train lines.

The Channel Tunnel is covered by the Sangatte Protocol (1991) and the Additional Protocol to the Sangatte Protocol (2000), which together enforce pre-boarding immigration controls. (For comparison, the Treaty of Le Touquet introduced them for cross-Channel ferries in 2003.)

Ultimately British politics has driven all of this: it's much easier, legally, to refuse someone without documentation at the UK border control in France (or Belgium, or in the future Holland) than it is when they claim asylum upon arrival in the UK.

Customs do happen like that routinely on intra-Schengen trains. But intra-Schengen, there's no immigration to clear. In Eurostar terminals at Paris Nord, London St Pancras, Lille Europe and Brussels Zuid there are immigration checkpoints. The ones on the continent are manned by UK border agents, the one in London, by the French border patrol. This way, Eurostar trains are effectively intra-Schengen. Since you clear immigration at a checkpoint, they don't usually have roving customs officers on the trains.

The border checks are the main reason for the delay in extending the Eurostar to Amsterdam. There's going to be a border check on the platform: 15b. That's the same platform currently used for the Thalys to Paris, which doesn't require a border check.

At St. Pancras, it's not just security. You're clearing EU immigration as well. They don't do anything on the train and once you hit the EU, it's just as if you got off an intra-EU train.

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