Eurostar Resumes Limited Service

Following on from the news yesterday that Eurostar had cancelled trains to the continent for a third day, Eurostar posted a message on it's website early this morning saying that a restricted service would run from 7:30am to 6pm GMT.

Eurostar said that only those passengers who originally had reserved seats for Saturday or Sunday would be eligible for travel on Tuesday. Eurostar said it would give priority to passengers “with special needs, such as the elderly or those with young children.” Those with tickets for Monday and Tuesday will be eligible for travel on Wednesday, Eurostar said.

Eurostar conducted tests on Monday to determine the cause of the breakdowns that left thousands of people stranded Friday on five London-bound trains in the Channel Tunnel.

It is still not clear why the wintery conditions this year - which are no worse than previous years - have caused so many problems.

Keep an eye on the Eurostar site for more information.

Eurostar Trains Cancelled

Ongoing bad weather conditions in Northern France have forced Eurostar to cancel it's services today for the third day in succession.

The first snow train to leave for the Alps was due to leave on Saturday, but with 2,000 passengers on five trains stuck in the Channel Tunnel over Friday and Saturday, thousands of other travellers had Christmas travel plans disrupted.

In the lastest statement released last night, Eurostar said:

"As we suspected, the acute weather conditions in northern France have caused the disruption.

Every year we carry out a ‘winterisation’ programme of the entire fleet which to date has successfully protected our trains. We now know, however, that we need to further enhance the snow screens and snow shields in the power cars of the trains.

We have already started making the modifications and to ensure that these new protection measures work effectively we are conducting a further series of test runs.

We sincerely regret having to take this decision and we understand how frustrated and disappointed travellers will be, particularly those who have been waiting to travel for the last two days.

We strongly advise passengers whose travel is non-essential to change their booking to a later date or claim a refund on their tickets.

For customers who have been unable to travel over the last few days, Eurostar will cover the cost of out-of pocket expenses, for example, hotels and taxis. Full details of our compensation policy are on www.eurostar.com”