Railways Overseas Also Take COVID Hit

New York Times

Fair Use:

PARIS — Earlier this month, David-Alexander Leduc rolled his suitcase down a nearly empty platform at the Gare du Nord train station and scanned his ticket at the turnstile to board the sole Eurostar leaving that day for London.

Mr. Leduc used to shuttle regularly for business on one of at least 17 high-speed Eurostar trains that ran back and forth daily, morning to night, through the underwater Channel Tunnel linking Britain and France.

He was lucky there was a train to take.

“It’s constraining,” said Mr. Leduc, who lives in London and has cut back hopping over to France to meet clients as a plunge in ridership from national quarantines forces Eurostar to slash services. “But you have to adapt.”

On Monday, a bad year for Eurostar suddenly turned worse. All service from London to Paris, Brussels and Amsterdam was suspended for at least 48 hours, as governments on the continent banned travelers from Britain, a precaution as health officials try to control a new variant of coronavirus sweeping across parts of England. Trains will continue operating from Paris to London, the company said.

The European railways have taken their "COVID hit" possibly worse than have Amtrak and the Local passenger train agencies have here.

For German operator Deutsche Bahn Fernverkehr (i.e. ICE and IC long-distance services) it was 42% less during January to October compared to the previous year.

For local rail transit most operators are similarly at around 50-60% of the previous year. During lockdowns - like right now - passenger volume drops to 10-20%.

We had an 80-90 percent drop in patronage on Metro and Yarra Trams.
An funny part of the lack of people and traffic was operational performance was at it's highest for some time.

Kiwirail's tourist orientated ( Nz borders are closed to foreigners) trains were suspended, now back to triweekly for locals. Not sure how commuter rail is faring, virtually everyone is back to normal work patterns.