Maybe the brits could help me here…
If you mean hovercraft or surface-effect vehicles, there are some that operate in ferry service across the English Channel between England and France.
I read that that one wnet out of buisness
My last journey from Belgium to England (Osteend to Dover) was on one of those (g. d.) things and I’ll never ride one again. This was before the Chunnel was in opration. It is one thing to spend 20 minutes in a motor boat going bam-bam hopping the waves, but this thing for two hours or so, I was really sick by the time we got to Osteend and one passenger had a heart attack with an ambulance waiting. I would not think of doing anything but using the rail link if I had to make the trip again. Still, the stoppover in Osteend gave me a chance to re-explore some of the narrow gauge modern interurban line there.
First get a spray bottle and fill it with water. Then take a fan, set it in front of you on high. Take one of you meds, close your eyes and spray the water towards the fan, while standing on one leg
I would rather take your advice than ride the hovercraft again, that is for sure!
There is a hover type ferry running between Haines and Skagway Alaska. Do an Alaskan cruise and do this shore excursion. Of course, if you do the hovercraft, you won’t have the time to do the White Pass railroad up to the summit…
http://www.hovercraftusa.com/ runs a hoverferry in Tampa
You should check the International Servces or the Shipping Services schedules of the Thomas Cook European Timetable for schedules. I have a December, 2002 edition of the Thomas Cook European Timetable, and it shows a service from Dover England to Oostende, Belgium via a bus connection from Calais, France. The ferry is not a hovercraft, but a 'high-speed" catamaran, and I would be wary of them because if the English Channel gets too rough they don’t run. Further, the train/ferry service is not coordinated in that if the ferry or the connecting bus are late the connecting trains are not held.
To travel from London to Cologne you take a train from London to Dover then a connecting bus to the Hoverport. The Hovercraft takes you to Calais, France where you transfer to a bus to Oostende, Belgium. You transfer to a train to Brussels at Oostende, and you have to transfer to another train at Brussels to go to Cologne. You could go from London to either Brussels or Cologne faster by Eurostar and a connecting Brussels - Cologne train with just one transfer, Cologne.
We’ll try to find one for you.
They still run small hovercraft to/from the Isle of Wight (an island just off the south coast of England near Portsmouth) - see http://www.hovertravel.co.uk/
We used to have family holidays on the island, but it’s been a long time since I last travelled on a hovercraft (good fun though). It also has a rail line run with old London tube trains - normal ones are too large to fit through the tunnels and bridges - which connects with the passenger ferries (high speed catamarans these days) by running out over a long pier. There is also a steam tourist railway.
Tony
The cross-channel hovercraft between Dover and Calais ended in 2000. I rode one a couple of times as a foot passenger (cheap day trip to France). They rode very well indeed though the noise was something else! Then again, the trip took less than an hour so it wasn’t too bad. Hoverspeed now operate the Seacat - I’ve travelled on one of them as well and they’re terrible, they’re fast but have a very noticable tendency to roll even in calm seas. Best of the bunch still has to be the conventional ferry, with a car deck full of heavy trucks it makes for a very smooth ride!
Photos and information on hovercraft can be found here: http://www.jameshovercraft.co.uk/hover/mainpages/index.htm
Well worth a look as it also covers the history of the cross-channel hovercraft operations.