LMS : London & Paris - Amiens - Arras - Albert via Tilbury & Dunkerque : timetable leaflet : 15 May 1931 : timetable and notes
Back in the day, even before Eurostar, it was possible to board a train and depart for Paris from London St. Pancras station; the journey involved a trip around the suburbs of north London, thanks to the Tottenham & Forest Gate Railway, that had opened in 1894 and is now served by TfL's branding as the "Suffragette line. A trip down the LTSR, owned by the Midland from 1912, was followed by a ferry crossing from Tilbury to Dunkerque/Dunkirk. The journey across northern France was courtesy of the Nord Railway and the ferry was operated by the A.L.A. company.
The Société A.L.A. (Alsace-Lorraine - Angleterre), a company that ran the shipping services from Dunkerque to Tilbury and that was associated with the much larger S.A.G.A - the Société Anonyme de Gérance et D'Armement, a major French holding company that had been formed in 1919, and that I think had Rothschild interests along with the C.F. du Nord, and encompassed a range of shipping companies including those actively involved in linking France with its then North African colonies. A.L.A. eventually was connected with the Southern Railway's extensive shipping interests (adding somewhat to their near monopoly of cross-Channel ferries) and, almost at the end of railway involvement, in 1977 passed into the ownership of Sealink.
As the leaflet notes the fares quoted for this less obvious Contiental link "compare most favourably with those charged by other routes" and the route also made for a convienient means of visiting the great battlefields of the First World War.
LMS : London & Paris - Amiens - Arras - Albert via Tilbury & Dunkerque : timetable leaflet : 15 May 1931 : timetable and notes
Back in the day, even before Eurostar, it was possible to board a train and depart for Paris from London St. Pancras station; the journey involved a trip around the suburbs of north London, thanks to the Tottenham & Forest Gate Railway, that had opened in 1894 and is now served by TfL's branding as the "Suffragette line. A trip down the LTSR, owned by the Midland from 1912, was followed by a ferry crossing from Tilbury to Dunkerque/Dunkirk. The journey across northern France was courtesy of the Nord Railway and the ferry was operated by the A.L.A. company.
The Société A.L.A. (Alsace-Lorraine - Angleterre), a company that ran the shipping services from Dunkerque to Tilbury and that was associated with the much larger S.A.G.A - the Société Anonyme de Gérance et D'Armement, a major French holding company that had been formed in 1919, and that I think had Rothschild interests along with the C.F. du Nord, and encompassed a range of shipping companies including those actively involved in linking France with its then North African colonies. A.L.A. eventually was connected with the Southern Railway's extensive shipping interests (adding somewhat to their near monopoly of cross-Channel ferries) and, almost at the end of railway involvement, in 1977 passed into the ownership of Sealink.
As the leaflet notes the fares quoted for this less obvious Contiental link "compare most favourably with those charged by other routes" and the route also made for a convienient means of visiting the great battlefields of the First World War.