page_title: Ashford International railway station
section_title: International
hierarchical_section_title: Ashford International railway station / Services / International
caption_attribution_description: English: 9O39 1513 Paris Nord to St Pancras International
context_page_description: Ashford International railway station is a National Rail international and regional station in Ashford, Kent. It connects several railway lines, including High Speed 1 and the South Eastern main line. Domestic trains that call at Ashford are operated by Southeastern and Southern, and international services by Eurostar.
  The station opened in 1842 as Ashford by the South Eastern Railway as a temporary terminus of the line from London to Dover via Croydon. Connections to Folkestone, Canterbury and Hastings opened within ten years. It was renamed Ashford in 1923. There have been two significant rebuilds; in the 1960s for the South Eastern main line electrification, and to accommodate international services in the 1990s. The station was renamed to Ashford International in 1996. International services were reduced following the completion of the Channel Tunnel Rail Link and the opening of Ebbsfleet International in 2007, but have since been partially restored. Domestic services along High Speed 1 to St Pancras have been running since 2009.
context_section_description: International services started on 8 January 1996, with the first stop being the 06:19 service from Waterloo. Before the completion of High Speed 1 in November 2007, twelve Eurostar trains a day called at Ashford, seven heading to Paris and five to Brussels. However, after the opening of Ebbsfleet International, this was reduced to three trains to/from Paris, and a daily service to Disneyland Paris. Eurostar defended the reduction, saying stopping at Ashford International added 8 minutes to journey times and required 25 people joining the train there to make it economically viable. A petition to reinstate services gathered 11,000 signatures.
  A single direct train in each direction to Brussels was reinstated in 2009, following campaigning from Kent County Council and Ashford Borough Council. This was expanded the following year to allow direct services between Ashford, Lille and Brussels-South on weekends, making day trips to European cities from Ashford possible. In May 2015, a service to Marseille via Lyon and Avignon began running up to five times a week. Direct Eurostar services from St Pancras to Amsterdam Centraal do not stop at Ashford, though a connection can be made by changing at Brussels.
  In 2018, it was announced that the international platforms would undergo a £10m refurbishment to make them compatible with Eurostar's Class 374 units, branded as Eurostar e320, as well as to allow other operators to use the station. The first Eurostar e320 stopped at Ashford on 3 April, with the Secretary of State for Transport, Chris Grayling, and MP for Ashford, Damian Green, on board. No other e320s stopped at Ashford International because of a technical fault until January 2020.
  As of July 2020, the off-peak timetable is:
  3 tpd to Paris – Gare du Nord
  1 tpd to Brussels Midi
  1 tpd to Marne-la-Vallée – Chessy (Disneyland Paris)
  Up to 3 tpw to Marseille – Saint-Charles via Lyon and Avignon – seasonal service from May to September.
  Up to 3 tpw to Bourg-Saint-Maurice in the French Alps – seasonal service from December to April.
caption: A Eurostar train at Ashford International
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