If only every train driver put his foot down as soon as the doors closed and hurtled as quickly as possible to your destination, failing to stop at any stations en route.

A Eurostar train travelled the 306 miles (490km) from Paris to London yesterday in a record 2 hours, 3 minutes and 39 seconds via the newly finished 68-mile High Speed 1 from the Channel Tunnel to St Pancras.

We exceeded the 186mph (300km/h) speed limit for much of the journey, travelling at up to 202mph. The train swayed and lurched too much to allow a trolley service, much to the disappointment of dozens of journalists on board. The stink of brakes filled the carriage as we rounded a bend and headed down under the Thames on the new northeastern route into Central London.

The driver appeared to be making a final effort to finish within the golden two-hour mark. But a 50mph speed restriction in Calais, imposed after the discovery of wartime excavations under the track, had cost us about four minutes. Eurostar had tried everything to lighten the load and boost the speed, including leaving 350 seats empty and taking as little liquid as possible.

The journey was still 15 minutes faster than the previous record of 2 hours 18 minutes, achieved in September 2003 on a train to Waterloo.

Guillaume Pepy, Eurostar’s chairman and head of SNCF, France’s state railway company, claimed that the French would much prefer to arrive at St Pancras. “The French can finally forget about Waterloo,” he said.

But they may be disappointed by the scenery on the last few miles into St Pancras. Until November 14 Eurostar trains will continue to run on conventional lines at 60mph through north Kent and then South London, passing James Bond’s headquarters (MI6), Big Ben and the London Eye.

From that date they will head east on the new 186mph line passing under the Thames near the Dartford Crossing before shooting across the industrial wasteland of Rainham Marshes and Dagenham. Perhaps it is just as well that the train then enters a series of tunnels, sparing our continental cousins views of Stratford and Hackney.

It feels odd for a Paris train to approach London from the north, but the arrival into the Gothic splendour of the refurbished St Pancras Station, a Victorian engineering wonder, is undeniably impressive. The station has been transformed in the three years since its days as Midland Mainline’s grimy, noisy terminus. Light streams through the enormous glass arched roof. The ironwork has been painted in the original eggshell blue. It is a fitting landmark for Britain’s only high-speed service, even if the streets around King’s Cross have yet to be improved by the planned regeneration.

The fastest London-to-Paris journey on a scheduled service from November 14 will be 2 hours 15 minutes — 20 minutes faster than the current journey. But timetable changes from December 9 will bring greater benefits, with the earliest train from London arriving in Paris before 9am local time, instead of the present 9.30am.

The last departure for London will leave half an hour later, at 9.13pm. Catching the first and last trains will add more than an hour to that romantic day trip to Paris.

Eurostar has promised not to raise fares, which will continue to start at £59 return. It is also making throughtickets available for the first time from 145 larger stations in Britain, with returns from Manchester to Paris starting at £84. Passengers who previously had to buy two tickets will save up to £50.

Eurostar hopes that faster journeys will raise passenger numbers from 8.3 million this year to ten million by 2010. But that would still be only half that predicted when the £5.8 billion High Speed 1 was approved a decade ago. However, punctuality is expected to rise above 95 per cent because Eurostar will run on dedicated tracks. Britain’s most expensive piece of railway will be the emptiest, with fewer than two trains an hour.

Despite the opening of High Speed 1, Britain continues to slip down the world league table for domestic high-speed rail journeys. It is now in ninth place, the fastest journey being from London to York at an average of 108mph. The world’s fastest journey is from Lorraine TGV to Champagne TGV in eastern France, at an average of 175mph.

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