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Four Eurostar trains have broken down in the Channel Tunnel due to cold weather, as more snow is expected to cause disruption in parts of Britain.

The temperature difference between the chilly open air and warm tunnel under the English Channel caused the trains to break down, Eurostar said. It said a rescue locomotive was trying to get them out.

At least three of the trains were from Paris to London. Two further trains travelling from Brussels and Paris heading for the tunnel were turned back.

Passengers trapped on Eurostar trains relive ordeal

Passengers trapped on board broken-down Eurostar trains for up to 16 hours have been talking about their ordeals.

More than 2,000 people were trapped inside the Channel Tunnel for hours after five trains suffered electrical failure due to freezing conditions.

One commuter called the experience a "complete nightmare".

Eurostar restarted a limited service for stranded passengers but later cancelled three of the four trains that were due to leave London. It said the cancellations were made due to ongoing concerns with the weather.

Passenger Meena Wells said there were angry scenes when these were announced. She said: "People were shouting, screaming and crying. They are very upset and actually refusing to leave the platform."

Meanwhile, the police have urged motorists to stay away from major routes around Dover and Folkestone unless their journey is essential.

Continued delays are expected on the M20 and other routes because of the tunnel problems and severe weather preventing ferries disembarking at Calais.

During the Eurostar delays some passengers were stuck on a train for up to seven hours in sidings in Folkestone.
 
Lucy Morris was nearly at St Pancras at midday on Saturday. Her 2hr 20min journey from Paris has taken more than 16 hours. She was stuck in the Channel Tunnel for about five hours and after her train was towed out, she was transferred on to another train, which was stuck in the sidings. The 20-year-old student from London, who had been on a shopping trip, said: "There has been no proper organisation. There is water but people are hungry. Staff are pleasant but have no idea. I'm exhausted and also angry at being treated so badly."

The company plans to offer passengers a full refund for tickets , another free journey with them and ^150 compensation.

Responding to criticism over the handling of the situation, Eurostar's chief executive, Richard Brown, said: "We did get them all safely out of the tunnel. Safety is our absolute priority as you would expect. What was unprecedented was the weather conditions particularly in northern France with heavy snowfall and very, very cold temperatures outside of the tunnel."
 
Mr Brown said the conditions caused condensation which brought about electrical problems in the tunnel. He added: "It is utterly unprecedented to have five trains failing in the tunnel at the same time. We will obviously be looking very closely at this to make sure that is does not happen again."

Transport Minister Chris Mole backed plans for an investigation into the causes of the delays. He said it was clear that passengers had a distressing experience.

Passengers on two of the trains were taken out via service tunnels to car trains, while the passengers on the other three trains remained on board.

Eurostar said there would be a limited service on Sunday and asked passengers whose journeys were not essential to consider cancelling their trips. It hopes to have a full service by Monday.

The problems with the Eurostar services had a knock-on effect for car passengers hoping to use the tunnel.

James Brownell and his friends had a 12-hour wait at Folkestone. The 27-year-old from Essex said they were left in their car in "sub zero temperatures" but they luckily had duvets and blankets to keep them warm.

John Keefe from Eurotunnel, the operator of the Channel Tunnel, said motorists should not travel unless they have a confirmed booking. He said those who do travel should expect disruption because of the appalling weather conditions in France.

Ch Supt Matthew Nix, of Kent Police, said: "The welfare of motorists, some of who have remained in their cars for many hours, is our primary concern."

Stranded motorists will get hot drinks, snacks and blankets to help them cope.

Staff at the Channel Tunnel and the Port of Dover are working hard to clear the backlog, police added.

The train breakdowns coincided with strike action by Eurostar drivers in a 48-hour dispute over pay which began on Friday. Around 70 members of the drivers' union Aslef are taking part in the industrial action.

Eurostar train becomes stranded on way from Paris

A special Eurostar service from Paris has become stuck near Ebbsfleet in Kent, after trains were left stranded in the Channel Tunnel on Saturday.

Passengers say there is no heating and lighting, and food has run out.

Earlier, five trains were stuck in the tunnel trapping more than 2,000 people for up to 16 hours.

Eurostar said special trains were being laid on on Saturday night to transport "vulnerable passengers" between London and Paris and Brussels.

Passengers on board the train in Kent say staff are unable to tell them when they will arrive at St Pancras.

The trains that became stuck in the tunnel suffered electrical failure due to freezing conditions.

Eurostar ran a limited service but later cancelled three of the four trains due to leave London on Saturday and scrapped all services for Sunday.

It said the cancellations were made due to ongoing concerns with the weather.

Some test trains will run on Sunday but will not carry passengers.

A Eurostar spokesman said: "When you have severe cold and snow even if you are operating within speed restrictions, which we were yesterday afternoon and evening, you do get a build-up of snow under and around the train and when you enter the tunnel you get water and at the end of the day these are electric trains."

Meanwhile, police have urged motorists to stay away from major routes around Dover and Folkestone unless their journey is essential.

Continued delays are expected on the M20 and other routes because of the tunnel problems and severe weather preventing ferries disembarking at Calais.

Meanwhile, there's some photos at http://www.rtranmer.fotopic.net/c1793764.html (http://www.rtranmer.fotopic.net/c1793764.html) of two Eurotunnel rescue diesels at St Pancras. Which makes you wonder how they rescued the other trains, and what speed these locos can manage!

The obvious solution, in my opinion, would have been to check everybody out at Ashford Int and then transfer them onto a domestic service to SPX.

Trains in Northern Scotland would carry hampers of pork pies, mars bars and drinks...

I am currently in France, due to return on Tuesday with Eurostar.  I don't hold out much hope.

Eurostar suspends services for third day

Eurostar has said there will be no services for a third day on Monday while further tests are carried out on its fleet of trains.

But commercial director Nick Mercer said engineers have now pinpointed the cause of electrical problems and he hoped services would resume shortly. Mr Mercer said severe snowy conditions in northern France has caused snow to be ingested into trains in a way never seen before. He said tests would be carried out on Monday with new modifications and it was hoped there would be an announcement later in the day that services would be able to resume.

Everytime i've travelled Eurostar, the French TM on board has never been visible and when they make announcements their english is pretty hard to understand to be honest.

Everytime i've travelled Eurostar, the French TM on board has never been visible and when they make announcements their english is pretty hard to understand to be honest.

I'm always very wary of statements that start or end with 'to be honest'.

Another interesting thought have the French TGVs/Thalys been affected in the same way a the two designs are very similar?

While accepting that this incident was a, albeit unforeseen, cock-up of the first order and was, at least initially, very badly handled, am I the only one who considers that some of the reporting, particularly by the BBC, has bordered on the hysterical?

Of course us English are known for our fluency in foreign languages.

The same is probably true of some of the English TMs, in the eyes and ears of the French travellers.

I'm always very wary of statements that start or end with 'to be honest'.

My other thought is that the tunnel is 14 miles long so you will never get standed more than 7 miles from a portal.  There is a service tunnel offering a safe lit route out, so why keep people on a stranded train for 15 hours when they could walk to the nearest entrance in less than 3 hours? 

 

While accepting that this incident was a, albeit unforeseen, cock-up of the first order and was, at least initially, very badly handled, am I the only one who considers that some of the reporting, particularly by the BBC, has bordered on the hysterical?...

It is more than double your distances in fact. It's nearly 32 miles between the portals, with about 24 miles under the channel. The two crossover caverns are at about 11 miles and 22 miles from the English portal...

But I don't disagree, there may be circumstances where walking out would be perfectly safe for most passengers.

Paul

There's a neat little graphic on the Guardian website which gives a nice succinct explanation of what went pear-shaped with the power cars. Possibly a little simplistic but it made sense to me.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/interactive/2009/dec/21/eurostar-channel-tunnel-snow-interactive

SNCF have been great and have allowed me to change my ticket into Paris twice for free

now I wonder whether FGW will do anything for missing my train booked today and thus having to buy an Anytime Single if and when I get to London?

Eurotunnel accuses Eurostar of ignoring safety rules

Eurotunnel has accused Eurostar of ignoring safety rules when evacuating passengers from trains last weekend.

The Channel Tunnel operator said evacuations were prolonged because people took bags with them "in complete violation" of safety procedures. It also rejected claims it contributed to the chaos when 2,000 people were trapped in five broken down trains.

Eurostar was unavailable for comment on Friday but last week blamed Eurotunnel for poor communication.

On Christmas Day the tunnel group also criticised Eurostar's passenger communication after the breakdowns, caused by condensation entering the high-speed trains' electrical systems. In a statement it said: "Although in continued contact with our teams, it is clear the Eurostar teams obviously did not give the right information to passengers." It added this had "led to a movement of worry".

Eurostar has admitted a communications failure, but has also partly blamed Eurotunnel, which it said was responsible for evacuations and relaying information to passengers in the tunnel.

But Eurotunnel said its staff had reacted quickly to help stranded passengers and had not failed to communicate with them. Its statement said: "Although... our teams took actions in a rapid and professional manner going beyond their normal responsibilities, we have been unjustly suspected in some quarters of not reacting in an appropriate way."

Can anyone really find fault with people wanting to take their possessions with them in this case, there was no real danger as the roling stock was stationary? Any dislocation with bags would have been prolonged and inevitably some of it would have been lost in transit. Heathrow T5 is a classic case of this. Labelling would have been non existant on most hand baggage anyway.
If there had been an accident or fire things would have been different as the danger level would have been ratcheted up several notches.

The shame of Eurostar & Eurotunnel ^ Saturday January 9 2010

This blog is intended to be read in conjunction with my Comment and News coverage in RAIL 635, about the traumatic experience which Eurostar and Eurotunnel inflicted on their customers over three days, December 19-21.

The failure of the five Eurostar trains in the Channel Tunnel on the evening of December 18 was bad enough and the sequence of events has been well chronicled in both general and specialist media. I don^t intend to repeat that chapter of cock-ups again here, nor do I intend to pick apart the cack-handed rescue/recovery operation, botched media response and other incompetence which was writ large throughout this ghastly chapter of events.

Managers far removed from the front line seem to have no conception of the misery they impose on ordinary folk when they get it wrong, or dither, or are risk averse in getting things moving when it goes horribly wrong. Is it because many of them today have not ^come up through the ranks^ and are therefore managing a product they cannot see and have not had to deliver personally themselves?

I plead guilty to this charge myself. in the aftermath of an incident or accident, offering lots of specialist media comment, I too can get so wrapped up in talk of signals and track, motors, snow or human error, or whatever it^s about, that I also fail to really relate to (or sometimes even consider) in any detail what the passengers have gone through on the front line. That^s wrong ^ they are the most important people.

We all say we care and I^m sure, in our own ways, we do. But a bit of help and a cold water reality check don^t hurt once in a while - and so I urge everyone browsing here to read this excellent account, by wife and mum Emma Powney, of the 17 hours she spent in Eurostar^s and Eurotunnel^s ^care^ on the evening of December 18.


It certainly put the events of December 18 into sharp focus for me. I have no doubt it will do likewise for anyone involved with today^s railway for Emma makes painfully clear what misery and trauma this industry is capable if inflicting those who pay so handsomely to make it all possible. And what^s worse is not so much the breakdowns ^ it^s the cack-handed, incompetent and seemingly uncaring way in which passengers were overlooked, herded around, ignored, forgotten and shamefully treated afterwards.

I defy anyone who has anything to do with the railway not to hang their heads in shame or grind their teeth in fury (or both) at Emma^s simple tale of the appalling experience inflicted on her family (and hundreds of others) by the railway.

Here^s her story:

^We boarded the Eurostar after our first delay on Friday night at 6.30pm from Disneyland.  It wasn^t too long into the journey that our train stopped after a couple of loud bangs from outside. By 10.00pm we had sat in the tunnel and been given very little info on what our predicament was, all except that a broken-down train was stopping our way from proceeding and that it would be 10 minutes until we got going again. Now, we should have been home already, so people are starting to get a tad irritated.

^An instruction from the tannoy tells us that the train is going to power down and that the lights will go off for a short time. So the lights go off and the kids have already been told to sit down a million times since we left, and are getting tired and restless.

^The train starts to get hot. Really hot. An argument breaks out at one end of our carriage between a group of adults that turns nasty. At the other end, a passenger is trying to force the doors open so we can get some air. The lights go on for a brief time, only to go off again, so adding to the already difficult situation.

A paramedic comes though and brings out a lady who is suffering badly, being claustrophobic. Kids have been stripped to their nappies and underwear, and what water we had is being shared between them all.


^The passenger working on the door finally gets it open, and a trickle of people jump the large gap between the train and the tunnel walkway. A girl starts hyperventilating and has to be taken to sit on the tunnel side. She is with her grandma who has another granddaughter asleep further down the carriage, so we assure her that while she checks on the sleeping one we will take care of the hyperventilating one.

^While this is going on the adults have reached breaking point at the end of our carriage and have kicked-off. My children are tired and crying, as it is so hot. Another toddler with his Dad is very quiet and is brought to the doors to try and cool down, although it was just as hot, if not hotter, in the tunnel. The little boy vomits everywhere and the dad is understandably shaky. Another lady, with her child wearing just a nappy, bursts into tears and gets hysterical, so I have a go at calming her down. My eldest son (5) has clearly had enough and sobs uncontrollably.

^Still no communication from Eurostar. We are still sitting/puking/walking/ crying/hyperventilating - all in the dark. Then ^Dave^ from Essex police pipes up over the tannoy that it^s not safe to open the doors or get out. Sorry Dave, no option there, the restless have already done it!

^Finally, after a confusing period of time, we are told to gather ourselves and get off the train. Do we take our luggage, or leave it? Don^t know, as we are not told. So we gather ourselves up, dress the sweating kids in all their winter gear and we all get off the train, two tired kids, and all our luggage, crossing over the very large gap and we wait on the tunnel side for further instructions.

^We hope we have all our belongings, but we don^t know for sure because we couldn^t see anything in the dark. Also, may I add, there was no help from Eurostar staff in getting our stuff off the train or carrying it along the small walkway, with the two tired kids and all our further holiday shopping. We had to rely on strangers - very kind strangers - who saw we were struggling.

^But where do we go? We haven^t been told. A passenger tells us that we are to walk along the tunnel and follow the stream of other passengers, but this is easier said than done in an already stressful situation.

^After negotiating the tunnel walkway we cross over an intermediate tunnel with a van in it and are told by a passenger (not a member of staff) to board the train in the furthest tunnel, even though it normally only takes vehicles. So, we all board and find a place to dump our stuff.

^This train is mighty filthy, as you can imagine. It^s just for cars and the floor is wet. There^s still no communication from Eurostar. By this time it^s knocking on for 3am! Finally, my kids fall asleep through pure exhaustion. I have to use the blankets we bought at Disney to lay on the wet, filthy floor, so they could sleep. After an hour we are still sitting aboard the car train, and another argument breaks out.

^Finally we are told conflicting statements! One is that we will be going back to Calais to stay in a hotel and be given food. Another that we will be taken to Folkestone aboard the car train and there we will be transferred to a Eurostar train (is this so that to the outside world it appears that we made the journey by that train, with seats, rather than the car train on which we had to sleep on the dirtry, wet floor?) ^ and be taken to London. We, along with many others, weren^t heading for London, but Ashford, so that caused a row and more rioting broke out!

^Finally, around 4am, I lost it - and it all got too much. Looking at my kids being forced to sleep on the floor, exhausted and knackered, I had a "moment" before trying to calm down. After more hours of waiting we finally arrive at Folkestone. So we all get up and wake our kids up ^ but my eldest is sobbing as he is so tired, falls over, cries some more. Exhausted, filthy, cold, tired, laden with luggage and two sleeping kids, we wait patiently to try and get off the train.

^Another riot breaks out and in the row I hear a frantic mum pleading with a French worker. Another mum explains her son is now in need of medical attention; yet another explains that her baby has no more formula milk. A gentleman asks the workers to please sort out the disgusting toilets as his child needs to use them - they can^t, so the poor lad wees on the floor in front of a crowd of people. Another lady shoves a Eurotunnel worker and that^s when I called the police. The police assured me that they were on their way. It started to get really out of hand. Passengers begging to be let off the train, only to be told ^no.^

After another two hours we are finally allowed off and have been assured that a proper Eurostar train is waiting for us. Well great, it is, but it^s locked and the crew to operate it isn^t there, so all the kids that have been woken up fall back asleep, only to have to be woken again to stand in the snow waiting to get on the locked/unmanned Eurostar.

While we queue we are told this train is not going to Ashford, which causes a lady behind me to ^lose it^ with a police officer. She is threatened with being arrested and I feel for her as at this point we have been awake and travelled for 14 hours. I start crying as again this is just so traumatic, and I find an English police officer and practically beg him to tell me anything he knows. He shows great compassion and I finally felt a bit more human again.

We all get the news we want that the train will stop at Ashford. It^s 8am and we board the train, only to sit there for another hour to be told nothing. We then imagine it can only be a 20-minute journey to Ashford. A group walks in to our carriage and starts banging on the driver^s door, demanding information. It^s been 16 hours and we have been offered a pain au chocolat, the kids are inconsolable; we are at the end of our tether.

The train, after much stop-starting, gets us into Ashford at around 10am - two hours from getting into Folkestone. I felt like kissing the damn platform. Going through the station a tannoy announced that the barriers are up on the car park, so we don^t have to pay! "Oh wow" (clean version) we say, what generosity.

We are handed a sticker with the number of the Eurostar complaints/customer services to call, as there^s no chance to get the desk, and anyway we just need to get our kids home and back to some normality, a clean bed and a clean nappy, as we ran out of those 16 hours ago!

A further hour later we are home - THANK GOODNESS.

I can honestly say that there has been no apology, there^s been a "we understand your situation" - but no formal ^sorry.^ The complete lack of communication was unbelievable. We were treated worse than transporting cattle - I^m sure at the very least they would have been fed.

I can appreciate that this is an odd situation, but surely a large company like Eurostar would have had some form of contingency plan, some kind of procedure to follow. All we had was a very frightened French Eurostar worker who was shaking so much that he was of no use, too afraid of the passengers that had been held in for too long. I felt for him.

I can only thank the people that helped us throughout this ordeal: the group of Scottish ladies with their children, the gent who kindly gave us nappies, the young ^uni^ lot who ran around getting us water, and most of all Darren, Stacey and Milly who helped us with our luggage, our kids and me when I finally went mental at a French worker.^

How can the railway be so badly organised to inflict such cruelty ^ for that^s what this was ^ on its customers? Although there are clearly issues about the breakdowns themselves (along with many engineers, I remain sceptical about the reasons being given for the failures) I find myself angrier about the clear lack of an emergency plan afterwards ^ or the fact that it was so badly rehearsed as to have been virtually useless.

Like Emma, I really feel for the solitary member of Eurostar staff, alone on a train of maybe 700 panicking passengers, who probably had no information himself, given that Eurostar seemingly cannot talk to its own staff in the tunnel. All communications, it seems, are through Eurotunnel. That sole member of Eurostar staff must have been not so much as terrified as, rather terrified OF the increasingly distressed, angry and panicking passengers.

Why does it take five or six HOURS to get a train out of the tunnel? And if it has to stay there so long, there^s a perfectly good service tunnel through which specialised vehicles can travel, why can^t extra, specially^trained staff to assist and reassure be quickly put aboard? Likewise water, and food?

If the problems ARE so bad as to require the train to sit there for the equivalent of a working day, why not use the service tunnel to get food, water and maybe emergency power aboard for the hotel facilities? Why do they just have to be left to nearly suffocate in soaring temperatures and airlessness?

Why were passengers made to traipse around like refugees, lugging their own luggage?

Why aren^t there a pair of Class 92s (God knows there are enough of them lying around) on Thunderbird duty at each end of the Tunnel, ready to go at a moment^s notice?

Why did Eurotunnel take the moronic view that this was a ^technical breakdown^ and not an emergency?

Why couldn^t the most basic things be done properly or even done at all?

The questions just go on^ and on^and on^.

And what explanations have we had?

Boiling it down, it goes like this:

Eurotunnel blames Eurostar.

Eurostar blames ^unique^ snow, which it says ^has never been seen before^, for which it says it cannot be expected to have been prepared.

Chris Garnett^s independent report must make sense of this shambles ^ otherwise his own top-notch reputation will be tarnished by this masterclass in incompetence from Eurostar and Eurotunnel.

Here^s one suggestion, Chris, for after the important big recommendations are made. Why not ask Emma if her account can be made available as part of the mandatory training for anyone who has anything to do with Eurotunnel and Eurostar?

Better still, ask her and some of the others she says shared her family^s ordeal to stand up in front of these ^managers^ and have them tell those who failed them so badly just what misery their dithering and failings put them through. Eye to eye.

Unless managers who have to deal with these incidents understand ^ properly - what these people really went through, they might just act too slowly again next time trains break down in the tunnel.

Because we all know it will happen. But there^s no excuse not to be prepared.

Eurostar has admitted that it expects to pay up to ^10m in compensation to passengers affected by the travel chaos before Christmas.

Thousands of people were stranded in the Channel Tunnel when five trains broke down in December because of condensation in their electrics.

Eurostar cancelled all services for three days to establish what went wrong and carry out safety tests.

In a letter of apology, Eurostar said improvements had been made.

'Apologise unreservedly'

Chief executive Richard Brown said: "I am acutely aware that we have to win back the trust of our customers following the disruption to our services before Christmas.

"We failed to deliver the standard of service you expect and I apologise unreservedly for the problems that occurred.

"Going forward, we need to demonstrate to you that we are doing everything possible to provide the most robust, reliable service during periods of severe weather.

"We are also very aware of the need for better information."

Mr Brown said the firm had strengthened its communication processes to provide better real-time information, increased the amount of food and drink kept on trains and developed a special timetable for extreme weather conditions.

He also said when the weather was bad engineers would check the trains before they entered the tunnel and their would be speed restricted.

A review is being carried out into what happened. It was commissioned by Eurostar and will report by the end of January.

Mr Brown added: "We can't guarantee that Eurostar will never again be subject to extreme weather disruption, but we will do everything in our power to ensure that the chances of disruption are minimised.

"When disruption does occur we will provide our customers with the care that you rightly expect."

Eurostar expects to pay passengers ^10m compensation. From the

I would have thought that it ought to be mandatory in the tunnel operating rules that there are Thunderbird locos at both ends.

After all they made enough fuss about the Eurostars being spittableel and all the self closing fire doors

Better still might be a tunnel rescue train as on the DB high speed lines, an adapted car carrier with bench seats, or a train of double deck RE coaches, to which passengers could transfer across to the road tunnel.They could be pre equiped with bottled water and dry longlasting sancks.

Is there still one at Newport for the Seven tunnel?

Given the crossovers within the tunnel it ought to be possible to set target to get a loco attached and the train moving or the rescue train positioned.

I would say 60 minutes but that might be ambitious but no more than 90 minutes.

Otherwise as others have said  it ought to be possible to get food and water to the stranded passengers via the road tunnel within 90 minutes as well.