Petem95

BBC News - Eurostar train becomes stranded on return from Paris

I find it hard to believe these things cant cope with -5

Surely temperatures of down to say -15 would be in the design spec, so you'd think they'd allow a bit of leeway and make sure they could run in -25.

In much of Canada and other places trains run every winter in -40, so surely an ideal case study.

Anyone know what is actually failing? News only says its electrical.

BlkKnight

It's not the cold, it's the very cold > very hot & humid which is the problem.

Causing condensation in bits they did not think of

mart360

My other Half & my littlest one went to EuroDisney Via eurostar at the end of november...

They said then the trains were like sauna's with the kids running round in T shirts as it was so hot... over heated prehaps

Also re the reports of no food or water on the trains, my other half reckoned

that was strange, given they had a well stocked dining car!

That said, they may have genuinely run out of both.

Mart

TelBoy

I was stuck on one once for about 2 hours, that was bad enough. But all night??


Won't stop people using it though...

David_Dickson

I dont understand this.... safety was supposed to be a massive part of the design brief for the tunnel, yet they cant recover a broken down train? Access through the service tunnels? towing the train out? surely to christ they have a plan for this happening? what if there had been an accident? would they still be floundering around like this?

f1_fan

iTrader: (9)

You have to say that even despite the 'unprecedented' conditions (minus 5 warrants as extreme on the British scale so it would seem) that this is another episode that makes us once again the laughing stock of the world.

If all the world's transport systems ground to a halt the minute it got cold places like Canada would be utterly uninhabitable. Frankly it's pathetic, but then that is what this whole country has become.

As aside despite record council tax bills Lancashire seemed to have given up gritting all but the motorway network in the last few years. I have fired off my usual email to them and will probably get their stock response I have had for the last 2 years about how it was all so unexpected except for the fact it was forecast for a week in advance. This will in turn get them my stock response of 'if you are going to take our money and **** it up against the wall on crap like traffic calming measures rather than spend it on gritting them please just be straight with us - there is only one thing worse than a liar and that is an unconvincing liar!!'

There, I feel better now

David Lock

It really is pretty appalling

The mind boggles if you think about an accident, fire or terrorist attack.

But so many unanswered questions like why did they keeping sending trains when they knew the bloody things were breaking down? Eurotunnel say that their own trains were fine - why? and if so why didn't they send in an empty one to get some passengers out?

This temperature thing must happen daily all over the world in cold climes so what is so special about Eurostar trains?

Is an emergeny moving walkway feasible?

I'm staying in!!

dl

dpb

ahemm ...'Condensation on the rails'


see below

ricardo

The thing that strikes me as odd is that we've had cold weather lots of times during the period that the Eurostar trains have been running. Something else must be different. Maybe a change to something on the trains, or they are saving money by not cooling the tunnel as much as they used to.

Plenty of head-scratching for the engineers though....

EddScott

Power supplies? Food, water and power supplies - WTF!

"My god, I'm stuck in the Channel Tunnel - TO THE INTERNET!"

Leslie

Apparently the unusual temperature difference between outside and inside the tunnel caused more condensation than usual which caused failure of the power supplies on the trains. What a magnificent design!

Les

unclebuck

Yep, sure is - it's a massive cover up.

Last week it was announced that the British eurostar drivers were going to strike over Christmas - but the company said it would not disrupt services because the continental crews would be able to cover for striking drivers.

Clearly, they have not been keen to cooperate. Seems to me they simply drove the trains into the tunnels and just stopped them there.

Witnesses have said that the French staff refused to speak English - pretending they didn't understand - and failed to provide any help, water etc. There is obviously more to this than we are being told.

It has nothing to do with any kind of technical problems IMO.

unclebuck

here are some links to the story two days ago - before the trains had the so called 'mass break down'

Eurostar drivers start 48-hour strike but train managers accept deal

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standa...ks-collapse.do

f1_fan

iTrader: (9)

Come on UB, where's the link to it all being Gordon Brown's fault. You are slacking man!!

boomer

UB,

that is _very_ interesting - British drivers go on strike on Friday night and the trains "break down" on, er, Friday night

Cheers,

mb

dpb

It was Gordan Browns fault cos he was away giving all our dosh away to the chinese , south africans , mongolians , phillipinos .....etc

scarey

they did manage to send a car in quickly especially to get claudia schiffer out quickly