How to (re-)open a station for long distance Channel Tunnel trains (and why it still should be Ashford)

What follows here is an attempt to apply what I learned from my #CrossChannelRail project to one specific, current debate, namely whether any UK stations could be (re-)opened for long distance trains to Continental Europe through the Channel Tunnel. There is a lot more background about this whole topic in the #CrossChannelRail final report I released 12 months ago.Three stations are talked about: Ashford International (that was served by Eurostar trains between 1996 and 2020), Ebbsfleet International (served between 2007 and 2020), and Stratford International (never served by any regular international train service).Stratford is the one in the headlines currently, and I have addressed some of the specificities of that station in a separate post. However I am going to try to cover all three UK interim stations systematically in this piece. Some of the lessons could apply to Calais-Fréthun, but I am not going to cover that station here.First, what does a station need?A means for…