Record-Breaking Ride From Paris to London

PARIS, Sept. 4, 2007 — -- There was a lot of champagne flowing and a New Orleans jazz band playing on the platform at Paris' Gare du Nord at 8 a.m. Tuesday.

No president or soccer champion was expected at the station. This morning the star was the Eurostar -- the train that links London to Paris.

Started in 1994, the Eurostar, which travels under the English Channel, has revolutionized the way people make their way from England to the continent.

Before that, travelers had to take a ferry boat -- a choppy channel crossing during which passengers would spend all their British pounds playing slot machines.

The tunnel under the Channel -- or the Chunnel -- came as a welcome breakthrough for frequent travelers and fueled hope for an enhanced friendship between the English and the French.

But for years, the Chunnel has been a topic of controversy, partly because the English had not built the fast track all the way to France.

Today, the controversy is over.

The Eurostar sped along its new path for the first time, and I was onboard -- my notebook in one hand -- and a glass of champagne in the other.

In front of the jazz band David Mayor, a tall, older gentleman with a mustache, a high black hat and a traditional costume, tried to steal the limelight.

"Are you the driver? Are you going to be in the driver's cabin?" I asked. "I wish I could!" said Mayor.

Not far away from Mayor, Guillaume Pepy, the Eurostar chairman, was trying answer my questions despite the loud jazz music playing in the background.

"Paris and London are now closer than ever," said Pepy. "We will try to break a speed record today."

Pepy said it took 10 years to build the missing 19 miles of fast track on the English side, because the land there is much more expensive.

"Building fast track in that part of England is three to four times more expensive than in France."

It cost about $10.6 billion to build the new fast track, said Pepy.

Then the announcement was made that we all had to leave the platform and get onboard, as the train was about to depart.

The passengers were given yet more champagne to pacify them.

The sun was shining this morning as we rode through to the French countryside.

Little churches and villages were on my left, golden wheat fields freshly harvested on my right.

I almost did not realize we were under sea level when we entered the tunnel.

At this point, the French driver handed the wheel over to the English driver.

We came out of the tunnel. Minutes later, there was a sudden smell of burned rubber.

Passengers wondered whether someone had lit a cigar.

But that was no cigar smoke. Francois Queret, the French driver, had the answer.

"It did smell like something burned. ... It is because the English driver went very fast,"[above 200 miles per hour, "and he then had to break hard," Queret said.

Fortunately, a few minutes later, the smell was gone, and we arrived safely in St. Pancras, the London Eurostar's brand new station.

"We broke a record," said an announcement inside the train. "Two hours, three minutes to link Paris to London." That is 30 minutes less than the current ride.

I heard shouts and applause from within the cabin.

I finished off my little bottle of bubbly: I was ready to get off the train and to admire the St. Pancras station.

The station is still a work in progress -- it will be open to the public Nov. 14 -- but it is already stunning.

Architects made the most of St. Pancras' original Victorian structure and blended it with the best of modern technology.

The glass ceiling is so massive that the station barely needs artificial light.

The main brick wall holds a massive old-style iron clock.

But the best is yet to come. By November, Eurostar said it will have built Europe's largest champagne bar along the platform.