Travelski Express will not run direct from London to Alps in 2023/24

Travelski have been unable to persuade Eurostar to continue their rental of one of their trains to travel direct from London St Pancras to Bourg St Maurice each weekend in winter, despite being keen to continue the service.

Since the pandemic, Eurostar have stepped back from any activity outside of their ‘core’ destinations. They have recently stopped offering their Disneyland Paris service as well. Before Covid, they also offered direct services to the Alps as well as Lyon and the south of France.

More positively, Travelski remain committed to offering a train-inclusive package from the UK and are currently working on putting a product together.

At present, this looks most likely to combine a Eurostar service from London St Pancras to Lille Europe, followed by a change of train to take passengers onward to the Alps.

The advantage of Lille is that the change of trains can be relatively seamless. There is no need to leave the station, although evidently passengers would be required to carry their luggage from one train to the next.

It’s understood that Eurostar will run this ‘ski train’ service themselves and will invite other tour operators to sell seats on this service. It is not clear at this stage whether there will be a ‘seat only’ option for skiers, which would allow them to combine the train with any ski booking.

The service is expected to run for a shorter season than the previous direct service, but would have the advantage of travel being during the day in both directions. It would travel out to the Alps during the day on Saturdays and return during the day on Sundays.

This would mean 8 nights in the mountains and a possible 7 days’ skiing.

It’s understood that there would be additional stops at Chambery, Albertville and Landry as well as the existing stops at Moutiers and Bourg St Maurice.

It’s worth noting that this option via Lille will only be packaged with Travelski properties in the resorts that they offer. Admittedly this is a wide choice including Tignes, Les Arcs, La Rosiere and Val Thorens.

As always, it is possible to travel on an indirect route via Paris (or Lille) and buy a separate SNCF ticket onward to the Alps. This allows you to book any option and choose any destination in the mountains and is how Ski Flight Free founder, Iain Martin, normally travels.

There are lots of case studies of his journeys to the Alps by train on this website, as well as detailed information on how to cross Paris from Gare du Nord to Gare de Lyon.