From Hucknall to Paris.....in six hours!

Hucknall, the burial place of the poet Lord Byron but a small town in the East Midlands still battling to emerge from the economic shadows left by the closure of the coal mines and the decimation of the textiles industry.

From afar, the two places seem worlds apart.

But now, they have closer links than ever before – separated by just a few hours and a few hundred miles of railway track.

For with apparent ease, you can hop on to a train in Hucknall and, without taking any more than a few paces to transfer from one locomotive to another, step out into Paris, one of the world's foremost cultural centres.

The journey is simple – Hucknall to Nottingham, Nottingham to London and then London to Paris.

And it has all been made possible by the 800 million renovation of London's St Pancras station, which has become the home for Eurostar services to the continent.

Amazingly, the whole journey from Hucknall to Paris can take less than SIX HOURS via the 5.8 billion Channel Tunnel rail link.

For example, if you fancied heading to Paris tomorrow (Saturday), you could grab a train on Hucknall's Robin Hood Line at 6.50 am and be in the French capital by 1.53 pm!

First catch a train to Nottingham, which arrives at 7.10 am. Twenty minutes later, grab the service to London and arrive at 10.08 am before a short wait for a train at 10.30 am to whisk you to Paris.

If you wanted to return on Sunday, you could grab a Eurostar train in Paris at 2.13 pm (Paris time), be back in London for 3.28 pm (GMT), leave London at 3.30 pm and be back in Nottingham for 5.53 pm.

Prices vary wildly with some through tickets from London to France as cheap as 67 return but others more than 200.

London-to-Paris trains run on Mondays to Fridays from 5.27 am to 8.05 pm and on Saturdays and Sundays from 6.27 am and 8.35 pm.

In the opposite direction, trains on weekdays run from 5.21 am to 8.35 pm and at weekends, from 7.13 am to 9.13 pm.

Other services available from St Pancras include to Brussels and to EuroDisney in France.

Eurostar chief executive Richard Brown said: "Our move to St Pancras makes Eurostar even more accessible to travellers across Britain. We will carry passengers with greater speed, ease and reliability than ever before.

"Our travellers will also have the extra reassurance that they are making far less environmental impact compared with flying."

Hucknall's Labour MP Paddy Tipping said: "It's great for me because I can walk yards to Hucknall station, make a quick transfer across the platforms at St Pancras and then travel right into the heart of Paris.

"So from going from one important venue in the heart of Europe, Hucknall, to one that nearly competes with us, Paris, is just a few footsteps away!

"It is a fabulous service. When I was a child, I would never have thought it was possible."