Eurostar sets new speed record

LONDON—A Eurostar train shattered the record for the quickest rail journey between Paris and London on Tuesday, using a new high-speed track that shaved some 30 minutes off the previous fastest time.
The record bid was launched to herald the public opening on November 14 of the new stretch of track in Britain and a new Eurostar terminal at London’s Saint Pancras station.
The 306 mile (492 kilometre) journey from the Gare du Nord in Paris to Saint Pancras took just two hours, three minutes and 39 seconds from station to station. The trip finally signals Britain’s admission to the European high-speed rail club, its absence from which has prompted some gentle — and not so gentle — ridicule from France in the past.
The Eurostar link between London and Paris was launched in November 1994 after the completion of the Channel Tunnel under the English Channel, the stretch of water which separates England from France.—Agencies