Eurostar delays: train services returning to normal after electrical fault in Channel Tunnel

 
Trapped: passengers stuck underground yesterday (Picture: @richardbyrom)

Eurostar services are returning to normal this afternoon after operators on the Channel Tunnel repaired around half a mile of overhead power lines.

The Eurotunnel trouble began yesterday as London was hosting the third stage of the Tour de France and has had a knock-on effect on those following it to France.

This led to evacuation of nearly 400 people, plus four dogs, who were taken on to France by another shuttle train via the service tunnel.

Eurostar had to cancel some services today and yesterday while there were delays to some shuttle services on both days.

But this afternoon a spokesman for the train company said most services were now "back to normal", with only some passengers facing delays of up to 30 minutes.

Eurotunnel said the repairs had taken about 24 hours. The broken-down shuttle was driven from the site by a diesel locomotive and brought to the platform in France, where customers were reunited with their vehicles to continue their onward journeys.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en">I gave up going to Paris at Ashford and took Southeastern back. Was greeted at St Pancras with this. <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/eurostar?src=hash" class="body-link" data-vars-item-name="BL-216706-https://twitter.com/hashtag/eurostar?src=hash" data-vars-event-id="c23">#eurostar</a> <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/chaos?src=hash" class="body-link" data-vars-item-name="BL-216706-https://twitter.com/hashtag/chaos?src=hash" data-vars-event-id="c23">#chaos</a> <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="https://www.awin1.com/awclick.php?mid=9&amp;id=222025&amp;p=http://t.co/3IBLycaMKz" class="body-link" data-vars-item-name="BL-216706-http://t.co/3IBLycaMKz" data-vars-event-id="c23">pic.twitter.com/3IBLycaMKz</a>— Melanie Seasons (@mseasons) <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="https://twitter.com/mseasons/statuses/486180819044954112" class="body-link" data-vars-item-name="BL-216706-https://twitter.com/mseasons/statuses/486180819044954112" data-vars-event-id="c23">July 7, 2014</a>

Eurotunnel customer experience director Yves Szrama said: "We apologise to our customers for any disruption that the events yesterday may have caused. The safety of the passengers is always our first concern.

Eurostar Chaos

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"Once that is assured, we want them to be comfortable, well informed and well looked after. The recent installation of mobile telephone services inside the tunnel helped us keep our customers informed during the incident".

Earlier, cycling fans and travellers told of their frustration after a second day of delays and cancellations.

They spoke out as Eurostar this morning cancelled four trains and warned of delays caused by overhead power failure in the tunnel.

Eurostar services cancelled today were the 7.31am London-Paris, 8.58am London-Brussels, 10.59am Brussels-London and 11.43am Paris-London.

Consumer group Which? Advised passengers affected that they were entitled to 25 per fare refund for delays up to two hours and 50 per cent for delays of more than two hours.

The Tour’s 200 riders escaped the trouble as they were whisked from The Mall finish to board four charter flights around 6pm from City Airport.

But the power failure had a knock-on effect on ferry services out of Dover with lengthy queues building on the approach to its terminal yesterday evening.

The port was already busy handling 1,100 vehicles from the Tour entourage.

At St Pancras, cycle fans spoke of their frustration.

Two American cycling journalists were forced to miss today’s racing after their early morning Eurostar departure from St Pancras was cancelled.

Caley Fretz, 26, and Matthew Beaudin, 31, covering the Tour de France for US magazine Velo had been booked on on the cancelled 7.31am train and said they did not not expect to travel until 2.30pm.

Mr Fretz said: “it’s hugely frustrating, but there’s not a lot we can do about it. It’s also affected a bunch of people with the Tour who were travelling yesterday. We just hope we can catch up with the tour on Thursday.”

Jan McQuaker, Carol Boyd and Jo Hansan were set to start a cycling holiday today, riding 450 miles from Paris to Bordeaux. They did not find out about the cancellation of their 7.31am train until arriving at St Pancras this morning, after watching the Tour yesterday.

Ms Hansan said: “This was meant to be a holiday celebrating my recovery from breast cancer and Carol’s 50th birthday, and this is not the best start.

“We are angry because we hadn’t been informed at all the train had been cancelled. We have a little bit more information today but are still not sure what train we will get on, but it won’t be until at least lunchtime.”

“We just hope we can catch up with the cycling tour as they have all our luggage and our bikes.”

American tourists Pradeep Giri, 30, and Camila Negret, 29, are in Europe celebrating their first wedding anniversary.

Mr Giri said: “We just have a few nights in Paris so we wanted to leave early in the morning so we could have a full day. But that’s gone and we probably will just get to have dinner today.”

“It’s frustrating as we weren’t informed the train was cancelled. We have checked flights and even hiring a car but it’s too expensive at the last minute. We have also been told we will only be compensated if we don’t travel at all.

“It was meant to be a romantic train journey into Paris but it has turned into a nightmare really.”

Problems with the overhead power line struck yesterday morning, forcing hundreds of passengers on Le Shuttle service to be evacuated. Many took selfies and other photos of the scene before being reunited with their vehicles.

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