Eurostar services resume – but passengers still face delays and cancellations

Tens of thousands of passengers looking forward to traveling eurostar train Yesterday, people between London, Paris, Brussels and Amsterdam woke up to New Year’s Eve not expecting it.

Thirty international trains were canceled on Tuesday due to technical problems with the Channel Tunnel, and one of the trains that did run arrived in Paris this morning, a full 12 hours later than planned. Eurostar has yet to comment on the journey, but Eurotunnel said it was not responsible for what it called the “nighttime incident on the UK network”.

Wednesday’s trains were nearly full and late, with severe delays reported on both sides of the Channel. independent It is calculated that around 25,000 passengers have been affected by flight cancellations.

Problems began when a power outage occurred in a tunnel between Folkestone and Calais in the early hours of Tuesday morning. There is an elaborate response to this single-track effort: a series of services, including LeShuttle trains, freight trains and Eurostar passenger services, run in one direction. When they are all passed, the train moves in the opposite direction. It slows everything down, but people and goods eventually get through.

But then a LeShuttle train broke down and everything came to a standstill. Initially, Eurostar sent trains to the Channel Tunnel in the hope of clearing the blockage. But by late morning, the train company had returned them to their point of departure and urged passengers not to attempt the journey. Trains resumed service around 4 p.m., but by then many people had given up.

Readers asked whether the Channel Tunnel was particularly vulnerable to damage. In fact, Eurostar and Eurotunnel rarely have problems, at least compared to the airline industry. Most of the time they move people efficiently between the UK and continental Europe. But when things do go wrong, it tends to go very wrong for Eurostar because of its huge market share between London and Paris, two of Western Europe’s largest cities.

There is simply no easy way to get these tens of thousands of people to their destinations. Despite easyJet adding extra capacity between London and Paris yesterday, ticket prices are still soaring due to mass cancellations. The cheapest British Airways flight on Wednesday is £625.

Eurostar said it would pay “reasonable costs, including hotel accommodation up to £150/€170 per room per night” for passengers stranded by canceled flights, adding that its contact center “will take a pragmatic approach when it comes to compensation”. Also covered are taxi fares up to £50/€60 per journey and food and beverage costs up to £35/€40 per person per day.

It is not possible to pay hundreds of pounds in compensation like airlines do for long delays and cancellations.

Rail services elsewhere in the UK also New year disrupted. There will be no trains to and from London Liverpool Street Station until January 2, while the West Coast Main Line between Preston and Carlisle will be closed from New Year’s Eve until January 15.

Read more: Eurostar confusion: What are your rights if a train is canceled or delayed?