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Travel On Train Eurostar e320
A Eurostar e320 train at Gare Du Nord

Eurostar e320

If you will be taking a journey by these Eurostar trains our guide will tell you all you need to know, from boarding, to making the most of the journey experience.

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At a Glance

Travel Pass Supplement

Rail Pass Reservation Fees
Reservations

Compulsory
Time of Day

Day
Catering

Food services available

Bar (sandwiches, snacks, salads)
Accessibility

Accessing the train

Wheelchair Spaces
Bikes Allowed
Train Specification

Attributes of the train

High Speed (total journey)
Has a Conductor
Country

Which country these trains operate in.

Belgium
Great Britain
France
Netherlands
Travel Passes
Eurail
InterRail

On Board

Business Premier/Standard Premier

Perks
WiFi

A complimentary WiFi portal is available throughout this train.

Power Socket

The power sockets on this train are compatible with standard E.U. two point plugs.

At Seat Catering

According to the time of day of travel, passengers will be able to choose from a menu of catering options, which will then be served at their seats.

The seats:

On Eurostar's e320 trains the seating areas for Business and Standard Premiere customers are similar.
There is a marked contrast with the Standard Class seating saloon, the seats are arranged 2+1 across the aisles instead of 2+2 and more of them line up with the windows.

Food and drink:
A Standard Premiere breakfast tray on a Eurostar e320 train A Standard Premiere breakfast tray on a Eurostar e320 train

Standard Premier class passengers will be served a complimentary light meal at their seat by the catering staff, the menu choice will depend on the time of day.
Business Premier class passengers will be served a three course meal.

Standard

Perks
WiFi

A complimentary WiFi portal is available throughout this train.

Power Socket

The power sockets on this train are compatible with standard E.U. two point plugs.

Using the power sockets:

Something watch out for in standard/2nd class, is that yes there is a pair of power sockets per seat – one for EU plugs and for one UK.

So be prepared to share the socket with a fellow traveller if you both have UK plugs or vice versa – but the position of these power sockets is somewhat bizarre.

The sockets are underneath the seat you will be sitting in, so finding the socket and lining up the plug can be quite the challenge!
So if you know you’ll want to charge up a device, plug it in before you take your seat.

Then don’t forget to take your charger with you when you leave the train, when you disconnect your device, the charger can be out of sight, out of mind.

The seating:

Whether, the seats in standard class are too hard or too upright is a matter of personal preference, but what isn’t in doubt is that their distinguishing feature is the height of the seat backs.

Very few seats in each standard class coach are now grouped around tables - meaning that most seats are airline style, so you face the back of the seat in front of you.

Though because the seats are so high, you cannot see much ahead of you apart from the seat in front.

Using the seating plan:

The arrangement of the seats in standard class also has no relationship at all to the spacing of the windows.

If you are in a back-2-back window seat in standard class, which also has a very limited view out of the windows - you will have a particularly claustrophobic journey.
So the advice is to make use the ‘manage your seat’ facility when making a booking on the Eurostar website.

Check the position of the seat you have been allocated on the seating plan and if it doesn’t line up with a window then change it – particularly if you will be travelling by daylight.

The view from the windows on a Eurostar is rarely scintillating, but if you can’t see out of a window, the standard class journey can feel like travelling in a plastic box.

Two e230 trains at Gare Du Nord Two e230 trains at Gare Du Nord
The profile of an e320 train The profile of an e320 train
An e320 train on the right and an e300 train on the left An e320 train on the right and an e300 train on the left
A Eurostar e320 train races through Stratford International station A Eurostar e320 train races through Stratford International station

Eurostar e320 travel guide:

These new Eurostar trains are from the same ‘Siemens Velaro’ family of trains as the German ICE3 trains and the third generation Spanish AVE trains - both of which are among the best of the best European high speed trains.

On these 320 trains, the Business Premier/Standard Premier seats are located in coaches 1 - 3 and 14-16, while standard class is located in coaches 4 - 7 and 10-13.

On the older e300 trains, the Business Premier/Standard Premier seats are located in coaches 7 - 12, while standard class is located in coaches 1 - 5 and 4 - 18).

Though it isn't unknown for an e320 train to be substituted by an e300 train - reservations will be re-issued at check-in.

Routes:

These e320 trains are used for most departures on this route: London - Ebbsfleet (Ashford) - Paris

They are used for some departures on this route: London - Ebbsfleet - (Ashford) - (Calais) - Lille - Bruxelles

You will be travelling by e320 trains on this route: London - Bruxelles - Rotterdam - Amsterdam

Reservations:

Seats will automatically be assigned when booking tickets for journeys by these trains.

You can check the position of the seat you have been offered on the seating plan - if you book direct with Eurostar.com, you can change your seat during the booking process.

Rail pass users will need to have made reservations prior to boarding (see below).

The Travel experience:

These trains have the facilities that are now to be expected on state-of-the-art high speed trains - power sockets, sleek toilets, WiFi and TV screens inside the coaches.

Boarding:

Eurostar conductors will be on the platform to help you find the coach in which your seat(s) will be located.

There is only one door per coach, therefore some seats have easier access by using the door on the adjacent coach/car.

Hence it can be a good idea to check the seating plan to ascertain which coach door gives the easiest access to your seat.

Or it can be worth asking the conductor on the platform, which door you should use for your easiest seat access option.

Managing luggage:

If you have large items of luggage, then the best option is stow it in the racks by the doors, and then find your seat.

You won’t need to rush to find your seat, all seats are reserved, so nobody else will be sitting in it.

If you find your seat first without stowing your luggage, you may discover that there is no space around your seat in which to store particularly large items of luggage.

However, medium sized bags (larger than the max size carry-on airline bag) will fit in the above seat luggage racks.
A big tick in the Eurostar e320 plus box is that these above seat luggage racks are exceptionally large.

Info about luggage allowances and items such as taking pushchairs is here.

Travelling with bicycles

Eurostar has also resumed it's boxed bike service for non-folding standard sized bicycles on the Paris <> London route.
Folding bikes can be taken on board as hand luggage as long as they fit inside a container or bag with a maximum length of 85cm.

Using rail passes:

Some welcome news, rail pass users can now pay reservation fees to travel on Eurostar trains, in a similar manner to other international European high speed trains.
Previously tickets were offered at a special rail pass user rate, which could be more expensive than the cheapest fares.

The new rail pass reservation fees are similar to the cheapest single journey ticket prices, but as those cheapest tickets can sell out quickly, it's likely that the rail pass reservation fees will save money.

The prices above are for journeys between London - Lille, Paris or Bruxelles.

Booking the reservations

The quota of seats available to Eurail and InterRail users on each Eurostar departure is limited and it's not unknown for it to sell out on some departures months ahead, particularly for travel in June to August and around holiday dates at other times of year.
The most popular departures will inevitably sell out faster - and it's these trains which inevitably have the best connections in Bruxelles, Lille and Paris for travel to and from more distant destinations.
Reservations on Eurostar trains can now be booked up to 330 days ahead of the travel date.

Particularly in summer, it can be a good idea to maximise the flexibility of making a successful booking, by arranging an itinerary so that Paris, or a city in Belgium, will be the finish or start points for a travel day,
This is because it's seemingly rare for every Eurostar to have its rail pass allocation sold out on a travel date, but it's more common for only evening departures to have availability.
Or if reservations are still available for London ↔ Lille journeys when London ↔ Paris isn't available, an option is to book the Eurostar reservation to or from Lille - and then take trains between Lille and Paris.

If you will need to travel by a specific Eurostar departure, you'll want to check that rail pass reservations are available for the train you need to take prior to buying a pass
The availability can be looked up on RailEurope and B-Europe without the need to already have the pass numbers that are assigned when buying a Eurail / InterRail pass - though you will need a pass number to go ahead and book.

Also avoid thinking, 'great I can see the reservations, so I'll book the pass now and go back to RailEurope or B-Europe tomorrow' - because at busy times the reservations can be sold out by the time you go back online.

Worth knowing is that before you have a pass, the function of the Eurail and InterRail 'timetable' tool is to show which departures require a reservation.
The timetable tool / online reservation service will only show the actual availability per departure, once you have purchased a pass, received a pass number and can then log-in.
Therefore before you have a pass, so can't log-in, the InterRail/Eurail websites will tend to show seats as available on every departure, so don't assume that is the situation.
The key thing is to avoid buying a pass and assuming Eurostar reservations will be available, and then discovering that they aren't on the train you need to take.

UK residents using InterRail passes

UK residents should also note that Eurostar reservations will only be valid when making one outward journey and return journey from and to the UK.
So if you were to follow an itinerary which involves heading back to the UK and then, for example, heading off later for a few days to travel around The Netherlands, you wouldn't be able to use the pass on the Eurostars on the second trip to the Netherlands.

Also the journeys within the UK need to be on the days that you will heading off to continental Europe or returning - so it's not possible to stay overnight in London before or after taking a Eurostar and then use an InterRail pass to travel to and from London.
The reason being is that a maximum of two travel days is permitted in the resident country of a pass user, and the journey on the Eurostar is counted as a day of use.

Travelling with bicycles:

Eurostar has had to temporarily (hopefully) suspend the transportation of non-folding bicycles. The info below is for the procedure which was in place before the suspension and which will hopefully resume shortly.

If you place a folding bike in its bag it can be taken on board as hand-luggage - if it is bagged.

Non-folding bikes can be taken on board if you book in advance OR if you use the registered luggage service at the station on the day of travel.

A flat rate of £30 per journey is charged for storing non-folding bikes on board a Eurostar train, but this fee can't be paid on the website when booking your journey tickets.
So it's best to call Eurostar's telephone booking service on 03448225822 from within the UK, or 044344822582 from outside the UK as soon as possible, bookings generally open around 180 days of the travel date - and then book the travel ticket and bike reservations over the phone as a single booking.

As explained on Seat 61, you can save money by disassembling a bike and placing it in a bag or box - and if you do that you can also increase the possibility of the bike(s) being accepted on to your first choice of Eurostar departure, spaces are more limited for assembled bikes.

Also worth knowing if you will be taking a non-folding bike, no matter how you prepare it for transport, is that only the trains between London and Lille, Paris and Bruxelles will accept a limited number of bikes on ANY departure.
Bikes cannot be transported on the last train of the day to Amsterdam and can't be conveyed at all to/from Ashford, Rotterdam, Ebbsfleet, or any of the destinations less regularly served such as Avignon, Lyon, Marne La Vallée, Marseille and the ski resorts served by Eurostar.

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