The Night Ferry

I don't know if there was ever a full fare but the cheap £10 tickets were obtainable from Gare du Nord in Paris, or from Victoria Station in London on the day of travel from a little booths called Transalpino. This was before the days of a Channel Tunnel and Eurostar deals of course, but the regular train and ferry probably took about six hours by day and at least eight hours by night. That was because of all the waiting around you had to do at the ports of Dover and Calais.

The Ferry itself would either be a Sealink (British Rail) ship or else a Sea France vessel. The interesting thing about the night ferry to me though, was that there was also a first class Paris Pullman carriage and the people in there stayed in bed in their couchettes all the way from London to Paris.

How could this be?

Once the train arrived at the Western Docks in Dover, the carriages were uncoupled and the sleeping car was rolled onto the lower deck of the ferry boat which has rails built into the deck especially to accommodate the train carriage. Pretty amazing really, but I suppose not compared with today's Eurostar which runs at high speed underneath the English Channel though a tunnel.

The night ferry was often cold, and sometimes very turbulent, crossing the channel no matter the weather in high storms and gales. Even on a quiet trip, there was really nowhere to sleep so you arrived at the other end feeling like a wrung out blanket and took another two days to recover.