Furious Eurostar passengers have hit out over massive delays after a failure of the electrical supply between Ashford International and Ebbsfleet International caused issues on Sunday.
Hundreds of passengers were forced to stand in huge queues during high temperatures before being told the last service was cancelled.
Eurostar tweeted an apology to customers at 4.25pm on Sunday saying: “We’re sorry, our trains are delayed because part of the track is temporarily closed near Ashford. Trains and stations are very busy today. Please only travel if necessary. You can postpone or exchange your ticket.”
The London St Pancras to Paris Gare du Nord service runs to Ashford International and Ebbsfleet and then crosses the channel through the undersea tunnel, before arriving at Calais in France.
Frustrated travellers wrote on Twitter that they were suffering in long queues with little information.
Dear Eurostar it is now 05:42am and passengers from the 20:13pm journey yesterday are still waiting with no reassurance of when or how they’re getting home. This is the current horrific situation at Gare Du Nord. Never in my life will I take the Eurostar shambolic service pic.twitter.com/tyolbGFVVW
— Zoe Briggs (@xxZoebillionxx) June 12, 2023
Dear @Eurostar, you say 'only travel if necessary'. But if people are not informed, how can they make this decision? You emailed me to bring water with me due to the hot weather, I think you could have emailed me about my delayed train (which still shows as on time btw).
— Maya Stanulova (@MayaStanulova) June 11, 2023
We are all stuck in an over crammed departure lounge in Gare du Nord station. No comms from the Eurostar team on the ground and the 17:13 just seems to be delayed indefinitely. You’ve lost a customer here. How simple would it be for you just to keep everyone updated?
— Bwin (@benedictwinter) June 11, 2023
Other passengers feared being crushed by a stampede as hundreds returned to Gare Du Nord for first 7.13am train to London on Monday.
Zoe Briggs, who said her train back to London was cancelled on Sunday night, wrote on Twitter that she had returned to the queue first thing on Monday morning.
She said: “At this point I don’t even know if I’m getting on the 7h13 train.
“Everyone is here ready for when the doors open to burst through and run. It is not a safe environment and I’m literally scared of the potential stampede. People are desperate to get home! Eurostar you can do better.”
Another said their all-female group was left wandering the streets of Paris at 1am after they were kicked out of Gare Du Nord.
She tweeted: “You chucked my group (all women inc. 2 pensioners) out of the station 1am after you claimed you booked a hotel for us. Got to the hotel and it wasn’t open and we were stranded alone at 1am. Begged a nearby hotel to sleep on their lobby floor. No regard for duty of care. Furious.”
Climate journalist Patrick Galey added: “Don’t be sorry. Just be less awful, please. There are children crying because of hunger and now you’re saying we are going to be more than 3 hours late.
“Everyone is going to miss their onward connections, why privatise a service and not secure its access?”
A Eurostar spokesperson said that their services were “running as normal” on Monday.
They added: “We are very sorry to those that were affected. Our station and onboard teams did everything they could to look after our customers and those wishing not to travel were able to exchange or refund their tickets.”
