Eurostar cancels half of London to Paris trains

Eurostar cancels half of London to Paris trains
Updated on

Summary

Queues grew at Paris's Gare du Nord after Eurostar cancelled more trains on Friday.The train line said delays would continue until Sunday, due to meteorological conditions in the south of England, and advised passengers to change their tickets for another train. A Eurostar passenger train got stuck in the Channel Tunnel on Thursday after it developed a technical fault, the second time in three weeks that trains have broken down and left passengers to cope with cancellations and delays. A spokesman for SNCF, the French state railway firm that partly owns Eurostar, said the likely cause was the train's on-board signaling system rather than bad weather. The spokesman added there would be knock-on delays to services because of the breakdown, but that no other trains had developed faults. Last month's failure, which brought a string of cancellations and chaotic scenes at railway stations, was blamed on powdery snow that melted into the trains. Eurostar has said the trains suffered electrical failure caused by condensation when moving from cold air in northern France into the warmer tunnel. December's stoppages stranded tens of thousands of passengers before the hectic Christmas period, ignited a major row over who was to blame for the chaos and even drew strong criticism from French President Nicolas Sarkozy. An independent review ordered into the service disruption in December is due to report its findings by the end of January.
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