Da Vinci Boosts Rail Numbers

The success of the film The Da Vinci Code resulted in soaring sales for Channel Tunnel high-speed train company Eurostar in 2006.

The thriller movie, set in London and Paris and promoted by Eurostar, helped the company record an 11 per cent increase in sales to pounds 518 million last year.

The company, which operates to Paris and Brussels from London’s Waterloo, carried 7.85 million passengers in 2006 – an increase of more than five per cent on the 2005 total.

Business travellers rose 17 per cent and the number of trains on time improved from 86.3 per cent in 2005 to 91.5 per cent.

Eurostar was helped by the numbers switching to its services during the airport baggage crisis in August and delays caused by fog at Heathrow before Christmas.

Eurostar will move its London terminal from Waterloo to St Pancras in November this year when the second, and final, stage of the Channel Tunnel Rail Link is completed.

With the link, London-Paris journey times will come down to two hours 15 minutes and London-Brussels will reduce to one hour 51 minutes.

Eurostar chief executive Richard Brown said: “These are record results. I am delighted.”

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