eurostar

By Thomas Biesheuvel and Anne-Sylvaine Chassany Dec. 19 (Bloomberg) — Eurostar Group Ltd., operator of high-speed trains between London, Paris and Brussels, will run a “limited service” tomorrow after severe weather and locomotive failure caused it to cancel services today. “There will be a limited service and we strongly recommend that travelers whose journeys are not essential change their tickets,” company spokeswoman Emelle Mouhaddib said. Eurostar aims to run eight services this evening for “vulnerable” people, she said. All services were suspended today, affecting more than 31,000 passengers, after four Eurostar trains broke down in the Channel Tunnel overnight and a fifth was delayed. Eurostar Chief Executive Officer Richard Brown said in an interview with Sky News that the temperature change on entering the tunnel created condensation that caused the locomotives to fail. The breakdowns had trapped more than 2,000 passengers in the Channel Tunnel, according to Eurostar’s Mouhaddib. As much as 6 inches (15 centimeters) of snow fell in southeast England yesterday and temperatures dropped to as low as minus-2 Celsius (24 Fahrenheit) overnight, according to the U.K. Met Office’s Web site . While car and truck shuttle services run by tunnel operator Groupe Eurotunnel SA reopened this morning, freight services across the English Channel were suspended after the French authorities closed motorways to lorries following severe weather conditions, John Keefe, a U.K.-based spokesman for Eurotunnel said in a telephone interview. “Several thousand” trucks remain backed up on the M20 motorway in the south-east English county of Kent as a result, he said. Trucks Stuck Trucks coming from Dover were stuck at Calais port because the A16 motorway was closed to them, Gerard Baron, a spokesman for Port de Calais, said. About 8 inches of snow fell overnight in the region, he said. Passenger shuttle services through the tunnel between Folkestone and Calais are currently running a “limited service” with “significant delays” and will be affected for the rest of the day, Keefe said. Eurotunnel said its locomotives and shuttles are prepared so that rapid temperature changes do not affect them. There will be further snow showers this evening in southeast England and temperatures will drop to as low as minus- 4 Celsius, according to the Met Office. Eurostar is seeking to run four trains from London to Paris, three from Paris to London and one from Brussels to London, Eurostar’s Mouhaddib said. The services are intended for elderly people, passengers with young children and pregnant women, she said. “It’s absolutely unprecedented,” Eurotunnel’s Keefe said. “The knock-on effect on passenger shuttle services and freight shuttle services is huge.” A Kent Police statement said “Operation Stack” had been implemented on the M20, where 2,300 trucks have been parked on the road. To contact the reporter on this story: Thomas Biesheuvel in London tbiesheuvel@bloomberg.net .