Rail traffic through the Channel tunnel slowly resumed on Wednesday with more cancellations and delays after an electricity failure on Tuesday stranded thousands of passengers and trapped some for a night in a powerless train.
Two London-Paris trains were cancelled and most trips were delayed in both directions as Eurostar warned of “knock-on impacts” on New Year’s Eve.
Thousands of travellers in the busy run-up to the new year faced hours of delays after the train operator cancelled services between London, Paris, Amsterdam and Brussels on Tuesday because of an overhead power supply problem and a failed LeShuttle train.
A spokesperson said “an overhead line fell on to a Eurostar train linking London and Paris, near the entrance to the Channel tunnel”.
Some services had resumed on the single available line by Tuesday evening, with Eurostar saying there were “further issues with rail infrastructure overnight”.
A statement on the Eurostar website on Wednesday said: “We plan to run all of our services today, however due to knock-on impacts there may still be some delays and possible last-minute cancellations.”
The first train on Wednesday from St Pancras in London to Gare du Nord station in Paris, scheduled for 6.01am, was cancelled, while the 6.31am departure was listed as delayed “due to a technical problem on another train” in the tunnel.
All other services were showing as scheduled on the company’s website, apart from the 16.01 to Paris, which by mid-morning was showing as cancelled.
Passengers had been advised on Tuesday to postpone their journeys to a different date and warned of severe delays and possible last-minute cancellations.
As well as the power problem, there was also a failed LeShuttle train in the Channel tunnel, the 31-mile (50km) undersea rail link between Folkestone in south-east England and Coquelles near Calais in northern France.
After warning of six-hour delays at the Folkestone terminal on Tuesday, the operator said that had dropped to 30 minutes on Wednesday morning. Six-hour waits were ongoing in Calais but passengers were advised to check in as planned.
On Tuesday, Eurostar staff at St Pancras station in central London were seen handing out water bottles to people waiting by a cordon who were caught up in the delays. Meanwhile, cars hoping to cross the Eurotunnel caused traffic jams on the approach to the Folkestone terminal.
Meanwhile, those caught up in the chaos on Tuesday have described their ordeals. Ghislain Planque told French TV station BFM that his Eurostar journey from London to France was meant to take just under 90 minutes but instead was 11 hours.
He said: “We were left without electricity, so with no heating, no air-conditioning, no possibility to charge phones. We were in total darkness for some of the time.”
TikTok user Eloise De Marco posted a video onboard a stranded Eurostar train with the caption: “When you’ve been stuck on the Eurostar for 10 hours.”
Another passenger stuck overnight on a train from London posted on X at 1.28am that there was “no electricity, no toilet, no info”, the Daily Mail reported.
A French passenger on Tuesday’s 7.01pm train to Paris told the BBC they were stuck onboard the service in London as of 3am and that the crew were “on no sleep” and were dealing with some “angry passengers”.
A LeShuttle passenger, Tim Brown, told the PA Media news agency he had been stuck in his car on the train at the Calais terminal for more than three hours with “no access to food or water. The fact that nobody has come around offering everybody a bottle of water is what has shocked me the most,” he said. “I know things happen, but surely that would be an easy way to help.”
Eurostar’s site earlier showed that even services on the continent not using the Channel tunnel – such as those between Paris and Brussels – had been cancelled during the day.
Eurostar has held a monopoly on passenger services through the tunnel linking Britain and France since it opened in 1994. The Virgin businessman Richard Branson has vowed to launch a rival service. Italy’s Trenitalia has also said it intends to compete with Eurostar on the Paris-London route by 2029.
Tuesday’s disruption affects Eurostar at a time when the company faces criticism over its high fares, especially between Paris and London.
An electrical fault forced the cancellation of Eurostar services and severe delays on others in August. The theft of cables on train tracks in northern France caused two days of problems in June.
