Snow in the motors led to the breakdown of four Eurostar trains in the Channel Tunnel at the weekend and the subsequent three-day shutdown of the rail service between London and Paris, dpa cited an Intergovernmental Commission as saying today. The commission, which issued its conclusions following a special meeting held Wednesday, said that the breakdowns "were different from those of winter 2008-09 which were linked to phenomena related to condensation." It was at first believed that condensation produced by temperature differences between the tunnel and the exterior had led to the problems. Some 2,000 passengers were trapped for up to 15 hours in the Channel Tunnel on Saturday after a winter storm blanketed northern France with snow. The entire Eurostar network was then shut down for three days, stranding more than 40,000 ticket-holding passengers at the height of the problem. Eurostar trains resumed running on Tuesday, and were slowly returning to a normal schedule. They were expected to be fully operational again on Saturday. The commission noted that Eurostar has put in place measures to avoid a repetition of the breakdowns, but it criticized the manner in which passengers had been informed of the problems. "The present organisation of the operators does not meet the information needs of passengers," the commission said, and urged the development of "satisfactory solutions in this matter."
