Eurostar at St Pancras

St Pancras railway station, also known as London St Pancras and since 2007 as St Pancras International, is a central London railway terminus celebrated for its Victorian architecture. The Grade I listed building stands on Euston Road in St Pancras, London Borough of Camden, between the British Library, King's Cross station and the Regent's Canal. It was opened in 1868 by the Midland Railway as the southern terminus of that company's main line, which connected London with the East Midlands and Yorkshire. When it opened, the arched Barlow train shed was the largest single-span roof in the world.

After escaping planned demolition in the 1960s, the complex was renovated and expanded during the 2000s at a cost of £800 million with a ceremony attended by the Queen and extensive publicity introducing it as a public space. A security-sealed terminal area was constructed for Eurostar services to Continental Europe—via High Speed 1 and the Channel Tunnel—along with platforms for domestic connections to the north and south-east of England. The restored station has 15 platforms, a shopping centre and a bus station, and is served by London Underground services from King's Cross St Pancras tube station. St Pancras is owned by London and Continental Railways, along with the adjacent urban regeneration area known as King's Cross Central, and is one of eighteen British stations managed by Network Rail. The redeveloped terminus has been described by the travel writer Simon Calder as "the world's most wonderful railway station".

The TGV (French: Train à Grande Vitesse, meaning high-speed train) is France's high-speed rail service, currently operated by SNCF Voyages, the long-distance rail branch of SNCF, the French national rail operator.

It was developed during the 1970s by GEC-Alsthom (now Alstom) and SNCF. Although originally designed to be powered by gas turbines, the TGV prototypes evolved into electric trains with the petrol crisis of 1973. Following the inaugural TGV service between Paris and Lyon in 1981, the TGV network, centred on Paris, has expanded to connect cities across France and in adjacent countries.

A TGV test train set the record for the fastest wheeled train, reaching 574.8 km/h (357.2 mph) on 3 April 2007. As of mid 2011, scheduled TGV trains operate at the highest speeds in conventional train service in the world, regularly reaching 320 km/h (200 mph) on the "LGV Est".

A TGV service held the record for the fastest scheduled rail journey with a start to stop average speed of 279.4 km/h (173.6 mph), which was temporarily surpassed by the Chinese CRH service Harmony express on the Wuhan–Guangzhou High-Speed Railway from December 2009 until July 2011.