Eurostar trains stuck in tunnel due to cold weather (19 December 2009)

[whole diary]

[Chris from Nailsea]

It's not looking good for the trains, unfortunately - from the BBC^» (British Broadcasting Corporation - home page):

Eurostar suspends services for third day

Eurostar has said there will be no services for a third day on Monday while further tests are carried out on its fleet of trains.

But commercial director Nick Mercer said engineers have now pinpointed the cause of electrical problems and he hoped services would resume shortly. Mr Mercer said severe snowy conditions in northern France has caused snow to be ingested into trains in a way never seen before. He said tests would be carried out on Monday with new modifications and it was hoped there would be an announcement later in the day that services would be able to resume.

[Btline]

It is a shame that this has happened, they were doing so well since the fire! Unfortunately, they have handled the whole issue BADLY, and their reputation is in tatters. (although I wouldn't hesitate travelling with them again!) I have to say that the calls for the CEO^▸ (Chief Executive Officer) to resign are pathetic! Why do people always do that?

Let's hope they learn from the mistakes, sack the staff that suddenly could only speak French to avoid talking to passengers, and pick up again next year!

[Super Guard]

Everytime i've travelled Eurostar, the French TM^‡(resolve) on board has never been visible and when they make announcements their english is pretty hard to understand to be honest.

[Brucey]

Everytime i've travelled Eurostar, the French TM^‡(resolve) on board has never been visible and when they make announcements their english is pretty hard to understand to be honest.

My understanding is that whilst in the tunnel, the TM remains in the rear half of the train.  In the event of a fire in the front half, coaches 9 and 10 can be uncoupled and the train driven out of the tunnel by the TM (who is a trained driver).

[JayMac]

Everytime i've travelled Eurostar, the French TM^‡(resolve) on board has never been visible and when they make announcements their english is pretty hard to understand to be honest.

Of course us English are known for our fluency in foreign languages.

The same is probably true of some of the English TMs, in the eyes and ears of the French travellers.

I'm always very wary of statements that start or end with 'to be honest'.

[grahame]

I'm always very wary of statements that start or end with 'to be honest'.

To be honest with you, so am I ....

[eightf48544]

Thanks for the links Worcester passenger don't be confused by teh numbers of the locos being 37 they are not EE Class 37s which Eurostar used to leave parked at Clapham Junction.

They are basically continental shunters (Vossloc?) hence low speeds quoted by Devon Metro.

Agree that not using Ashford seems very silly.

There was a shot yesterday on the TV news that showed some passengers boarding a Javelin to Dover to catch a ferry so I assumme that that service has been running OK. It is also possible to run a Eurostar/TGV^▸ (Train a Grande Vitesse) into Calais Ville and arrange coach transfers to the ferries.

I know I've been on one that did that and went onto Paris on the traditional route. That was a freezing cold day and no problems.  However I assumme SNCF^▸ (Societe Nationale des Chemins de fer Francais - French National Railways) is lesss flexible in it's planning than even Eurostar so probably couldn't be done at short notice.

Anthoer interesting thought have the French TGVs/Thalys been affected in the same way a the two designs are very similar?

[Electric train]

The train on Saturday the broke down was passed Ashford, I believe it had got passed Ebbsflleet and eventually reversed to Ebbsfleet to detrain

[Tim]

Another interesting thought have the French TGVs^▸ (Train a Grande Vitesse)/Thalys been affected in the same way a the two designs are very similar?

Possibly.  The TGV's were not coping very well yesterday (I spoke to my Brother last night you is in France trying to get TGV from Charles de Gaulle to Lyon.  His train was 2:30 late when I last spoke to him - which suited him because his flight from Leeds-Bradford was also very delayed).  He told me SNFC did not seem to be coping too well (by way of contrast I had a look at NationRail online departures for some busy OK stations like Manchester Picc where they had lots of snow and whilst there were some delays they were typically 10 or 20 minutes and the UK^▸ (United Kingdom) network seemed to be doing pretty well).

I suspect that the first part of the Eurostar problem (combination of the "wrong sort of snow", high speeds and poor snow-sheilding causing snow to get into delicate parts of the train) may be common with some TGVs (remember there are lots of different versions of TGVs), the Eurostars also have to cope with the very warm (20 degree C) temperature inside the tunnel which causes the snow to melt and short out the electrics (at least that is how I understand the problem). 

I don't think EE class 37s could be used to rescue trains in the tunnel because Eurostar has sold them off and also because they are desels they cannot be used in the tunnels, but it amazes me that there are not some electric Thunderbirds that Eurostar can call on.  The shunters used for some of the rescues are owned by Eurotunnel and whilst I am sure they are suitable for tunnel maintenance and shunting around the shuttle terminals they are too slow for mainline use (Also are they not diesel and barred from the tunnel??).  I am disappointed that Eurostar has had to rely on these and doesn't seem to have contingency plans for using proper electic locomatives through the tunnel - can't they borrow class 87s or such like from a freight company?   As for transfering passengers to Javelins- it sounds like a good idea but do they have the capacity?

How about running the Eurostars more slowly so that snow doesn't get sucked into them? 
 
Eurostar could at the very least have provided enough food water and toilets for the passengers (are there not places in the service tunnel where this can be stowed?) and made an effort to get people home by other routes (why are they not sending passengers the classic route via the ferries?).  It is an easy option to simply offer a refund and compensation and not carry people.

My other thought is that the tunnel is 14 miles long so you will never get standed more than 7 miles from a portal.  There is a service tunnel offering a safe lit route out, so why keep people on a stranded train for 15 hours when they could walk to the nearest entrance in less than 3 hours? 

 

[Bob_Blakey]

While accepting that this incident was a, albeit unforeseen, cock-up of the first order and was, at least initially, very badly handled, am I the only one who considers that some of the reporting, particularly by the BBC^» (British Broadcasting Corporation - home page), has bordered on the hysterical?...a news editor who believes that disrupted travel is more important than UK^▸ (United Kingdom) service personnel being killed on active service and the collapse of the Copenhagen Climate Change talks amongst other things needs, I think, to have a serious look at their priorities.
And a big 'well done' to Richard Brown for having the courage, and nous, to stand in front of the cameras and say 'Sorry, we screwed up' while being subjected to some unnecessarily agressive, and ill-informed, interrogation by one of the muppets from BBC News 24.
And as a matter of minor interest, the 'Javelin' service was not only running OK but when my son used it to get from DVP to SPX on Saturday, after having been delayed by around 6 hours at Calais due to the overnight closure of the port, he was sold a 'standard' service ticket (normally valid to CHX or VIC) for ^11.90 by the TM^‡(resolve) who said that all restrictions had been suspended.   

[onthecushions]

Reading between the lines, it looks like another case of the wrong type of snow (i.e the dusty, fine grained, sub-cooled variety that gets through ordinary screens and then compacts). Northern France is usually more extreme in temperature than Southern England.

The reported fitting of new screens (probably to the smaller, a.c. traction motors, unlike other TGV^▸ (Train a Grande Vitesse)'s) suggests this, although some trains seem to have lost the ETS^▸ (Electric Train Supply) (hotel power) supply as well, so more of the system may have problems.

The tunnel has a large cooling system - R22 water chillers supplying 200mm un-finned pipes. These aren't enough to take the traction heat so the tunnel is warming over the years. It shouldn't be humid as concrete has a low permeance.
Certainly frost, melt water and 25kV don't mix well.

E* always seemed to me to want to be an airline, not a railway, hence the ticketing etc. Probably the basic out-of-course operating skills and gear just aren't there, although the safety planning etc at the outset was formidable.

Anyone with technical information?

OTC

[devon_metro]

While accepting that this incident was a, albeit unforeseen, cock-up of the first order and was, at least initially, very badly handled, am I the only one who considers that some of the reporting, particularly by the BBC^» (British Broadcasting Corporation - home page), has bordered on the hysterical?

Agreed, the news coverage is disgraceful, its not a headline story , the shambolic affair at any South East airport should be receiving equal coverage!

[Super Guard]

Everytime i've travelled Eurostar, the French TM^‡(resolve) on board has never been visible and when they make announcements their english is pretty hard to understand to be honest.

Of course us English are known for our fluency in foreign languages.

The same is probably true of some of the English TMs, in the eyes and ears of the French travellers.

I'm always very wary of statements that start or end with 'to be honest'.

Point 1.  I'm fluent in French and German.

Point 2.  I used "to be honest" because it is my honest opinion.  You can carry on being 'very wary' if you so wish, 'at the end of the day' that's your choice. 

Point 3.  Yes we English are generally terrible when it comes to foreign understanding and language, the point I was trying to make was my experience of general announcements where the French TM's could speak English was that it was not very clear (may be down to the PA^▸ (Public Address) quality, or just the speed/voice they spoke), so therefore imagine English speakers stuck in the tunnel unable to understand what was being said in an emergency situation taking hours to sort out?

[inspector_blakey]

There's a neat little graphic on the Guardian website which gives a nice succinct explanation of what went pear-shaped with the power cars. Possibly a little simplistic but it made sense to me.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/interactive/2009/dec/21/eurostar-channel-tunnel-snow-interactive

[super tm]

Ah that makes sense now.  It was the wrong type of snow.