Travel chaos as Eurostar is hit by power failure
EUROSTAR passengers face chaos this weekend as engineers battle to fix a power failure which stranded two packed trains for hours in northern France.
The problems have arisen after 1,200 passengers got stuck near Lille and were left in darkness without heating for hours when an overhead power cable failed on the line on Thursday night.
Nearly 700 passengers heading for Paris were delayed for six hours while passengers on the Brussels train arrived nine hours late.
The journeys from London should have taken 2 hours 15 minutes and 1 hour 58 minutes respectively. But when the trains ground to a halt, passengers had to sit in the dark for hours waiting for diesel trains to tow them on to slower lines to Lille where they transferred to waiting Eurostar trains.
The knock-on effects forced Eurostar to cancel three trains yesterday with many services running late and warnings of more delays over the weekend.
A spokesman said: “There will be some delays until it’s fully repaired as we’re operating on just one line in that area at the moment. However these have reduced around the day and we’re expecting will be around 20 minutes.
“Repair work is due over the weekend, and from then services will be back to normal.”
The delays occurred just a week after the cross-Channel service celebrated its 20th anniversary.
I was trapped on your train for 9hrs. No information and in pitch black
The spokesman added: “The passengers on the Brussels train are entitled to twice the amount of a complete refund plus a free return trip, while those on the Paris train can claim an entire refund plus a free return trip.
“This issue wasn’t about trains, it was an issue on the power supply which is operated by French infrastructure provider RFF.”
But passengers complained about a lack of information.
Londoner Seonaid Redden, an advertisement executive on the service to Brussels, tweeted: “I was trapped on your train for 9hrs. No information and in pitch black. You waited 8hrs to bring water to customers.”
Gymnastics instructor Vicky Gibbons, from Croydon, south London, who was travelling with her husband Andy to Paris, tweeted: “Well Eurostar thank you for a wonderful 30th birthday trapped on a train, not moving and with zero information! Happy birthday.”
