Eurostar lounge on foursquare
I wasn’t expecting this, but after a few check-ins I’ve already become Mayor of the Eurostar St. Pancras Lounge on Foursquare. I guess that’s what happens when you commute frequently on the London-Paris route. The only glitch is that … Keep reading →
Comments OffCategories: Eurostar Frequent Traveller and Carte Blanche · Eurostar London
Tagged: eurostar london; foursquare;
Payback time has come. In December 2009, adverse snow conditions had caused a dramatic situation for Eurostar, where several trains lost power and got stuck inside the channel tunnel. Although there were no serious injuries, thousands of passengers got stranded during the critical Christmas season, consumers, media and governments got angry at Eurostar crisis management, and all other Paris-London routes via air, ferry or bus/car quickly got overloaded.
With the recent Icelandic volcano eruption causing chaos in Northern European skies, and ripple effects across all of Europe and beyond, the Eurostar turned out to be the only haven for tens of thousands of British travellers stuck on the continent – and European or even American travellers stuck in the UK.
Not only that, but Eurostar has been able to setup many additional trains on Monday April 19th and Tuesday April 20th for an extra capacity of 80,000 pax. Moreover, the additional seats are offered at a flat rate (96 EUR or 89 GBP one way), which is not the lowest but not even the highest possible rate.
All extra trains can be easily booked online on Eurostar.com, however note:
→ 1 CommentCategories: Eurostar Fares and Tickets · Eurostar train Quality of Service · Eurostar website
Tagged: eurostar; service; disruption;
Following the December 09 Eurostar/Eurotunnel accidents, the independent commission has finally released the “Eurostar Independent Review” (what a funny title, isn’t it?). This is a 90 pages PDF document.
It’s also published in French as “L’enquête indépendante Eurostar” (PDF).
I haven’t read it in full yet.
Comments OffCategories: Eurostar news · Eurostar train Quality of Service
Tagged: eurostar, eurostar accident, eurotunnel, incident
I have been very busy personally and professionally to keep following details of the Eurostar accidents, but in the meanwhile I have noticed a couple of personal email letters sent from Richard Brown to all Frequent Travellers.
The letters are somewhat fuzzy but they do show a number of initatives and actions being taken at avoiding further risks, on one hand, and improving emergency and communication operations on the other.
In particular they explicitly mention an enhanced communication plan through web, email, Twitter and Facebook.
I just wanted to provide a positive aknwoledgment after so many weeks of problems.
Comments OffCategories: Eurostar health and safety
Tagged: accident, disruption, eurostar
As a frequent Eurostar client, I am much more interested in understanding the rescue procedure/communication issue for my future peace of meind, as I am sure the technical issue will be solved. I have combined information from railforum.co.uk (in particular thanks to Old Timer, boing_uk, O_L_Leigh, captainbigun, EM2 and 91101), other forums and people I know who were there.
Here is my recap of what happened (again – I am not discussing the technical root problem, just the process). Any further fact finding will be appreciated.
1. If one Eurostar fails in the tunnel, another train can be allowed in because they would have the potential to help. Keep reading →
→ 1 CommentCategories: Eurostar health and safety
Tagged: eurostar accident; incident; eurotunnel;
Eurostar passengers stranded in the emergency car shuttle train
Now that people start getting back home after the Eurostar tunnel failures on Dec 19th and Dec 20th, first hand witness content starts flowing out. (by first hand I mean not edited or reported by media).
Here are a few snippets and links to what we could find today around the web, providing more glimpses on the emergency procedure and communication during the crisis: Keep reading →
→ 3 CommentsCategories: Eurostar health and safety
Tagged: accident, blog, eurostar, facebook, twitter
Eurotunnel role in the Eurostar crisis
I already commented yesterday on what I think are the causes of Eurostar communication failure, which have made everything more difficult than necessary for all impacted passengers and families during the tunnel crisis.
With today’s information I can focus more specifically on a communication gap between Eurostar and Eurotunnel, the company operating the Channel tunnel. Keep reading →
→ 10 CommentsCategories: Eurostar health and safety
Tagged: accident, disruption, eurostar, eurotunnel, failure, twitter
BBC interview with Eurostar chief executive (Dec 20th, 10am GMT)
This morning (Sunday Dec 20th) the BBC has broadcast an interview with Eurostar chief executive. I am appalled.
1. The poor guy seems to be there by mistake. Not to be disrepectful, I had flashes of old Mr Bean sketches.
What he should have done: be calm, show control of the situation. Not sit back in passive mode, but put arms on the table and show initiative and interest. Look at how the interviewers (esp. the lady) seem about to jump across the table!
2. He does not seem to know (or to be able to talk?) about details. This causes him to display a denial attitude.
What he should have said: Keep reading →
→ 2 CommentsCategories: Eurostar health and safety
Tagged: bbc, chief executive, disruption, eurostar, incident
Now that everyone is safe and “out”, stories start surfacing from all over. In one word: total PR failure.
Obviously the twittersphere and TechCrunch are exposing the twitter viewpoint here.
I use Eurostar well enough to know that there are good people working there.
In ordinary situations, it is an amazingly well oiled machine. 30,000 passengers per day go back and forth without a breeze. I also know they can be kind and very informative in case of delays or minor disruptions. But I can easily imagine what has happened this time: Keep reading →
→ 10 CommentsCategories: Eurostar health and safety
Tagged: accident, disruption, eurostar, eurotunnel, failure, twitter
Eurostar disruption
Severe weather conditions have caused severe Eurostar traffic disruptions over the night. Apparently, entering warm tunnels from icy-cold weather in both France and UK has caused failures – the root point of failure is not yet known.
For the first time in Eurostar history, 5 trains have been stranded inside the tunnel. 3 trains have been towed away and 2 other trains have had to be evacuated by moving all passengers onto nearby cargo trains.
Passengers have reported stories of terrible conditions, some passengers have been very harsh with the emergency service provided as in this video report on the BBC site. Obviously I wasn’t there but I can just imagine that evacuating 2000 passengers during one of the coldest nights of the year must not be a simple affair.
Eurostar traffic is entirely cancelled for 2 days – Saturday Dec 19th and Sunday Dec 20th UPDATE: it seems like a few trains might run on Sunday Dec 20th – see eurostar.com.
The company quite good at providing traffic updates information through the Eurostar Service Disruption web site, and I encourage users to avoid calling them and to increase stress on their current workload.
→ 2 CommentsCategories: Eurostar health and safety · Eurostar train Quality of Service
Tagged: disruption, eurostar, eurotunnel, failure, service
