Lucas electrics?
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Tunnel breakdown traps thousands

More than 2,000 people spent hours trapped inside the Channel Tunnel after four Eurostar trains broke down due to cold weather.

The trains failed as they left the cold air in northern France and entered the warmer tunnel.

Some passengers were evacuated to car shuttle trains, while others remained on the stranded trains overnight.

Eurostar say the four trains have been moved from the tunnel and passengers are being transferred to England.

Meanwhile, more snow and freezing temperatures are expected for parts of Scotland and south-east and eastern England.

Heavy snowfall caused travel chaos, forced schools to close and cut off power supplies in parts of the UK on Friday.

Electrics failure

John Keefe from Eurotunnel, the operator of the Channel Tunnel, said the situation was "absolutely extraordinary".

"Four Eurostars broken down at one time - it's absolutely unprecedented," he said.

"There's never actually been an evacuation of a Eurostar train in the 15 years that the tunnel has been opened and last night we evacuated two whole trains to get people off."

Eurostar services have been cancelled until noon and will be severely disrupted at the weekend. Passengers are being advised not travel unless their journey is essential.



The four trains were coming from Brussels and Paris, and Eurostar said the change in the atmospheric conditions caused a problem with their electrics.

A spokeswoman said some passengers were already back in England. She said the company was "extremely sorry" for the delays and refunds would be available for all those affected.

"We will also be looking at compensation," she added.

Many people are at terminals at either end of the tunnel, waiting to make the crossing or to be transferred to other stations in England.

Lee Godfree, a passenger evacuated from one of the stranded trains, said he and his family had arrived in Folkestone at 0500 GMT, having left Disneyland Paris at 1837 GMT.

He said their journey had been a "complete nightmare".

"We were without power. We ran out of water, we ran out of food and there was very, very poor communication from the staff," he told the BBC.


"We lost air conditioning when we lost the power. We had to open the emergency doors ourselves.

"The evacuation procedure we followed was one that we set down ourselves."

Mr Godfree, from Stowmarket in Suffolk, who was travelling with his wife and young son, was told there were 700 people on board their stranded train, where the "heat was unbearable".

He said there were pregnant women, people in wheelchairs and hundreds of parents with young children, and they got themselves on to the car train, where they sat on the "filthy floors".

The shuttle took them to Calais before heading back to England and they then had to wait for a train to take them on to London.

Two of the stranded trains are being pushed to London St Pancras by diesel trains.

Passengers from a third were evacuated from the stricken train by Eurotunnel shuttle and later transferred to a Eurostar train bound for St Pancras.

People on the fourth train were taken by shuttle to the terminal in France.

The problems with the Eurostar services had a knock-on effect for car passengers hoping to use the tunnel.


Eurotunnel assisted with the removal of the trains from the tunnel and at first the car service was suspended but it has since re-opened with "significant delays".

James Brownell and his friends had a 12-hour wait at Folkestone. They were due to catch the 1800 shuttle on Friday night but only arrived in France at 0500 GMT.

The 27-year-old from Essex said they were left in their car in "sub zero temperatures" but they luckily had duvets and blankets to keep them warm.

He said they were offered no food or water, and very little information.

"It was so frustrating, we did not have a clue what was going on," he said.

"There were babies in the car behind us. It has been a terrible 12 hours."

Hazardous roads

To add to passengers' difficulties, there is also congestion around Folkestone and Dover.

The Port of Calais is closed and passengers have been advised not to travel there. Anyone planning to make a journey is advised to contact their travel operator.

Following the closure, Kent Police warned drivers to stay away from the Folkestone and Dover areas of the M20 motorway.

The force said the severe weather conditions were making driving hazardous in this area and there was no parking for drivers who are being turned away from the Channel Tunnel.

It has brought Operation Stack into effect - holding coast-bound heavy goods vehicles on the M20.

It means more than 2,300 lorries can be parked on the motorway.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/uk_news/8421875.stm

Published: 2009/12/19 10:00:37 GMT

© BBC MMIX

Ya think the terrorists in europe are taking notes?

Sounds like moving from the cold, to the warmer temps caused some condensation.



Oops, guess they better seal their electronics better.  

Paging UKJohn for a boots-on-the-ground report

 
 

Having owned a 1959 Austin Healey, this cracks me up, too.

JC Whitney made their whole year off of me trying to mitigate design issues.

The god of darkness strikes again.  

Read the last few lines. Many people were not prepared for the stoppage. I guess I would've been caught also, but I guess the moral of the story is, "be prepared for unexpected," considering the temps. I always carry some water, some beef jerky, a few dried fruits & nuts, and a some granola bars, just in case of unforeseen problems.

oops sorry for being late I was getting a Brit bash in gd



the last fire in the tunnel made me know that I never want to use it
call me a control freak , but I need two outs at any time .
but remember all our trains stopped one winter as we had the wrong type of snow http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_wrong_type_of_snow.







john
 
 
 

if you need some just ask







 

Chunnel gets 'stranded' pretty often.  When I was there in 2K2, I thought about taking it to Paris.  It got stuck for like 4 hours.  I took Air France instead.

And the bit about the wrong snow is funny!  When I was there, we got like 2 inches of snow.  OMG.  You guys can handle that insane dense fog, but a little snow, and shut the trains down!  I walked to work, and (the few) people that made it in were shocked!  I was like 'It's 2 inches of snow, and it's 35 degrees out, it's not even sticking to the roads..  I fail to see the problem.'

yep that sums it up over here .



i had a motorway ( freeway ) all to my self one year as we had a few inchs of snow and most people could not get of the drive




prepping and bob, ghb just do not exist in the uk some  cars dont even have a spare wheel ( serviceable )  ( i am a mechanic/ painter )



john







 

It's important to replace the smoke that was let out of the electronics.

You don't think it had anything to do with the strike?

I Soooo need a bottle of this.

I think if there were some ARFCOM SF members there, things would be vastly different, well at least for the people around them.
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latimes.com/news/nation-and-world/la-fg-chunnel20-2009dec20,0,3232027.story
latimes.com
Rail passengers spend a cold, dark night stranded in Chunnel
Four trains from Paris to London stalled in the tunnel under the English Channel when their electrical systems shut off.

By Janet Stobart

December 20, 2009

Reporting from Tichborne, England

Passengers who had spent the night trapped in freezing temperatures in the English Channel tunnel emerged Saturday describing "a complete nightmare" in pitch-dark unheated trains without food or water.

Four trains on the Eurostar line joining London and Paris broke down after entering the tunnel on the French coast Friday night, and a journey that should have taken less than three hours turned into a cold 11- to 16-hour marathon for more than 2,000 people.

The first trickle of shivering passengers appeared Saturday morning at London's St. Pancras station and central London bus stations hungry, thirsty and angry.

Lee Godfrey, interviewed by a BBC reporter, described the ordeal as "a complete nightmare" suffered by passengers ranging from the elderly and ailing to children and pregnant women.

"We were without power. We ran out of water, we ran out of food, and there was very, very poor communication from staff," Godfrey said.

Others who spoke to the BBC said they had spent the night on the floor of their stranded carriages waiting in vain for assistance or even informational announcements by the crew.

Eurostar spokesmen said the breakdowns occurred when the trains, leaving freezing temperatures in France, hit the warmer, damp underwater atmosphere of the Channel tunnel, causing the electrical systems to seize up.

Temperatures continued to drop in Britain, and travel conditions worsened on British roads, especially the main highway from Dover, the English road terminal for the Channel tunnel, to London, where signs Saturday night warned motorists of delays of four hours or more.

A severe cold front has gripped the country for several days, causing the closure Saturday of several busy airports, including London Gatwick and Luton.

Stobart is a news assistant in The Times' London Bureau.

Copyright © 2009, The Los Angeles Times

Eurostar suspended amid cold snap

Eurostar passenger trains will remain suspended on Sunday after the wintry weather caused chaos.

More than 2,000 people were trapped in the Channel Tunnel for up to 16 hours after condensation caused a series of electrical failures on Friday night.

And a special Eurostar service bringing passengers back from Paris broke down near Ebbsfleet in Kent on Saturday.

The closure of the tunnel left thousands of people stranded on either side of the channel.

Calais port was also closed, causing chaos on roads around Dover and Folkestone.

Kent Police said the queues had eased overnight, with more than 3,500 cars crossing the Channel on ferries.

'Really uncomfortable'

Five Eurostar trains broke down in the Channel Tunnel on Friday night due to cold weather.

The breakdowns were caused by condensation after the trains left the cold outside air and entered the warmer tunnel.

Some passengers were evacuated via service tunnels to car trains, while others were kept on their trains.

Eurostar will run test trains without passengers on Sunday to try to get to the bottom of the problem.

The company then laid on two special services to try to get as many people as possible across the Channel, one from London to Paris and another in the opposite direction.

However, that one initially broke down soon after leaving the tunnel.

A second train was sent to pull it to London, but was unable to climb a steep incline at Thurrock viaduct.

The trains returned to Ebbsfleet where the passengers were taken off the first train and transferred to the rescue train, which went on to London's St Pancras station alone, arriving around midnight local time.

Student Natasha Seal-Jones was travelling back from university in France to spend Christmas at home in Belper, Derbyshire.

She told the BBC News website: "It was really cold on the train at the beginning then it started to get really hot. It was really uncomfortable.

"There was no food available whatsoever, and hardly any drinks. When we asked questions we weren't getting any response."

'Out of touch'

Affected passengers will be offered a full refund, £150 compensation and a free return ticket.

But Nirj Deva, Conservative MEP for the South East of England, wants Eurostar chief executive Richard Brown to step down over the situation.

Mr Deva said the firm's management were "out of touch".

"I therefore call on Richard Brown to admit that his company was not adequately prepared to deal with the situation, and to do the decent thing and resign," he said.

Mr Brown, who visited St Pancras on Saturday, said he was "very, very sorry" for the inconvenience.

He told BBC Breakfast it was "an absolutely unprecedented event".

“ I'm not saying it went well, I'm saying it went rather better than actually a lot of people say ”
Richard Black Eurostar chief executive

"We have well-rehearsed procedures for evacuating trains from tunnels, because the safest way to get people out is to keep them on trains. But with five trains, it inevitably, until the last one, took a very long time."

Many passengers complained of a lack of food and drink, power supplies and information while stranded in the tunnel.

Mr Brown said: "Clearly, if you're on a train stranded in a tunnel, it is a distressing experience. People will panic, which is why the contingency plan, to get trains out with people on, while they're entirely safe, out as soon as possible. That's what went wrong, it took too long to get the trains out."

The trains had spare water, but it had run out, he added.

"I'm not saying it went well, I'm saying it went rather better than actually a lot of people say."

The weather also caused disruption to flights, and there are expected to be further delays and cancellations.

More snow is expected to fall, with a severe weather warning in place for Northern Ireland. Northern England and south-west Scotland are also expected to be affected, and heavy snowfall is possible in Wales and the Midlands. FORECAST FROM BBC WEATHER



Have you been affected by the Eurostar problems in the Channel Tunnel? Tell us your experiences and send us your comments.

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Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/uk_news/8422978.stm

Published: 2009/12/20 09:08:30 GMT

© BBC MMIX

2 words
Sealed electronics
2 more words
Cabinet Heaters  
Funny we have heaters in most electronically controlled gas pumps here in the US to prevent this but they dont on their multi million dollar train set .
2 more words
Redundant Electronics
Also in most gas pumps in the US.