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.
Tales and tips from a real Eurostar Client 
Hi,
I was unable to travel to paris due to the disruption on the 19th Dec. Bummer.
However, I’m holding a standard non flexible ticket. Will I be able to get a refund from eurostar? Mine was an online booking.
Posted by Chen | December 22, 2009, 12:55 pmHi,
I am sure you can get it refunded. You should get in touch with Eurostar.
You should read the specific instructions from Eurostar here:
http://www.eurostar.com/UK/be/leisure/customer_care/questions_answers.jsp
Posted by eurostarclient | December 22, 2009, 1:24 pm