Monday, December 21, 2009

Eurotunnel shuts down car service amid Eurostar chaos


Passenger David Brown told the BBC he was one of more than 1,000 passengers stuck at the terminal at Folkestone.

He said day trip passengers had been told to go home, and Eurotunnel was citing "severe technical problems".

Meanwhile the Eurostar rail firm has announced it hopes to resume service on Tuesday, saying: "We will do our best to get everybody home by Christmas."

Earlier Eurostar launched an immediate review into train breakdowns which have stranded and delayed tens of thousands of passengers since Friday.

Eurostar chief executive Richard Brown said it would be "very very busy" on Tuesday, but they would be running as many trains as possible and planned to put increasing numbers into service on Wednesday and Thursday.

The company has asked passengers to avoid trying to travel over the next three days if possible.

Their priority was to get displaced people back home, it said.

Snow shields

Eurotunnel - which carries vehicles under the Channel - said its terminal was at "saturation point".

It blamed passengers who had turned up on Monday, after postponing their travel plans over the weekend due to bad weather.

BBC transport correspondent Tom Symonds said the company was sending away passengers who had booked day trip tickets on its Le Shuttle car service.

Passengers without bookings were also being told not to turn up because they would not be able to buy a ticket.

Eurostar trains - which serve rail passengers travelling from London St Pancras to France and Belgium - have been further modified to cope with cold weather.

The trains were being tested on Monday, after services were suspended for a third day.

More than 55,000 travellers have had journeys cancelled after six trains broke down in the tunnel.

Eurostar said it believed it had identified the problem, and had made adjustments to try to stop water getting into the electrical systems.

It said snow shields used to protect the electrics had worked for the 15 years it has been running services through the tunnel.

Monday's tests were going "pretty well," a Eurostar spokesman told the BBC.

The company plans to make an announcement on progress by 1800 GMT.

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