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Eurostar Chaos: 30/12/2025.

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43096

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Diesel is not permitted in the tunnel iirc
It is permitted.
I thought they used a battery loco
They don't have any.
Eurotunnel have 5 diesel locos (from memory made by Krupp)
They have 10. Five built for Eurotunnel originally, five more all-but-identical locos bought from DB Cargo Nederland.
Not sure what has happened but shuttles are supposed to be capable of being reversed using the rear loco which are designed to be powerful enough to haul the train.
Which is irrelevant if the power supply has failed or the knitting has gone all East Coast Main Line...
 
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Tetchytyke

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The check is not done on ticket bookings - it is an electronic check / recording of the passport, by carrier staff, at the point of departure. On all modes - rail, coach, air, ship
It isn't done at the point of departure at all. It is done based on the Advance Passenger Information (API) you supply to the airline, who then pass that API on to the Home Office. Sometimes you supply that API at check in (either online or at the airport desk) but, in many cases, you do not.

I have my API saved with British Airways as part of my BA Club membership, likewise with EasyJet, as it makes the check-in process quicker. It is interesting how so many of the recent HMRC issues have been where people have booked flights but not showed up for them, for whatever reason.
 

williamn

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It's decades since I used either service (the horrendous queues at St Pancras and this reminds me why I don't much mind). Can someone clarify - does St Pancras (and Folkestone, come to that) have UK exit passport checks? If so, that would make it different to every UK airport I've ever used. (Never understood why the UK, unlike every country I can think of, doesn't seem to generally have exit passport control, but that's another story!)

DP
This is such a weird take, every mode of transport has a melt down sometime or an other, if you apply this way of thinking across the board you’d never go anywhere. And on every occasion in the last through years I’ve been through ticket, security and passport checks at St. Pancras in a max of 20 mins.
 

RT4038

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It isn't done at the point of departure at all. It is done based on the Advance Passenger Information (API) you supply to the airline, who then pass that API on to the Home Office. Sometimes you supply that API at check in (either online or at the airport desk) but, in many cases, you do not.

I have my API saved with British Airways as part of my BA Club membership, likewise with EasyJet, as it makes the check-in process quicker. It is interesting how so many of the recent HMRC issues have been where people have booked flights but not showed up for them, for whatever reason.
There is a problem with the Airline system then, if they are not cross -checking the API supplied information with the actual check-ins.
 

TheWierdOne

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There is a problem with the Airline system then, if they are not cross -checking the API supplied information with the actual check-ins.
From the airlines perspective it’s not their problem. If you don’t show up and haven’t cancelled they still have your money. Save perhaps for unaccompanied minors they have no duty of care before you enter or after you exit the plane.
 

Aaron_TTL

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The updates on the eurostar website are pretty poor, it shows the 17:31 9044 as cancelled but it's just left on time.
 

Mainline421

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But it's not equivalent. At St Pancras, Dover, (and I assume Folkestone although I've never travelled on LeShuttle), you go through both borders before you even get on the train - leaving you free to just casually walk away at the other end without going through any kind of security or passport control. The same is true in the other direction.

So this morning we have lots of people who have already "arrived" in Schengen and "left" the UK despite them sitting in the St Pancras lounge, or on a LeShuttle train which has not left the platform at Folkestone, or on one of those trains which departed but never made it into the tunnel before turning back.

Meanwhile there are people in Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam, etc who have "entered" the UK and "left" Schengen despite still being in those cities.

In airports you go through border control to "leave" the country, but don't "arrive" at your destination until you have passed through another border control point in that airport. Between the two border points you are essentially in no-man's land. If your flight is cancelled after passing through, you can simply enter again because you haven't "arrived" anywhere else, using the airport's already setup inbound passport control.

St Pancras and Dover (etc) are not setup in this way - there is a clear exit with no obstacles, so you will not pass through any kind of border again (leaving you still "in" Schengen) unless there are physical alterations made to the routes through the building to essentially reverse the flow.
They have procedures for this. My train from Brussels a week ago was delayed two hours and quite a few people were able to leave the station despite having left Schengen and "entered the UK" (with obvious warnings that they would not be able to come back, but could rebook for free at a later time).
 
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My understanding is that, as designed, the tunnel is supplied with power from both ends but a subsequent modification changed this to feed from the French end only. Has there been a reduction in redundancy which contributed to this failure?
When did that happen! Sounds like a backwards step to only have a power supply from one source. Or do you mean that there used to be a midpoint within the tunnel that is now "bridged" over, I've not known of any neutral sections within the tunnel but doesn't mean it's not (or was never) there.
I wonder if resiliency of substations or grid feeders was actually the main problem.
People are saying the OLE failure was near a crossover, this could mean that repair work necessarily has to block both lines. I reckon some kind of (earthing) fault on the le Shuttle train caused the OLE to break apart (happened at St Pancras (Eurostar) station once.
 

JamesT

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When did that happen! Sounds like a backwards step to only have a power supply from one source. Or do you mean that there used to be a midpoint within the tunnel that is now "bridged" over, I've not known of any neutral sections within the tunnel but doesn't mean it's not (or was never) there.
I wonder if resiliency of substations or grid feeders was actually the main problem.
People are saying the OLE failure was near a crossover, this could mean that repair work necessarily has to block both lines. I reckon some kind of (earthing) fault on the le Shuttle train caused the OLE to break apart (happened at St Pancras (Eurostar) station once.
https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/from-which-grid-is-the-channel-tunnel-electrified.267201/ This thread from last year suggests the tunnel has sufficient supply at both ends, but in general use it will only be fed from one end at a time.
 

sdhughes

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According to a member of staff on a shuttle at calais, the issue is damaged catenary at one of the crossovers in the tunnel, requiring single tunnel running. Shuttles are being dispatched in batches of 3, 5 mins apart, with gaps of 1 hr 20 mins between batches based on the info they are publishing on leshuttle.com/latest
 
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https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/from-which-grid-is-the-channel-tunnel-electrified.267201/ This thread from last year suggests the tunnel has sufficient supply at both ends, but in general use it will only be fed from one end at a time.
Yeah this is what I've heard before, they can't both be in use at the same time unless there is a neutral section in the middle, which may be the case I'm not sure.

I think these are the Channel Tunnel grid supply points: in France and UK

Interestingly the British one is just 132kV which may be a mistake as I also assume Channel Tunnel is an AT fed line which are normally from a Supergrid source only.

In a total failiure, would Channel Tunnel ever share power from HS1 or LGV Nord? HS1's Sellindge isn't that far away.
 

800Travel

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This video may be of interest to members.

Some photos from the evacuation of the broken down train in the tunnel, inside the service tunnel, inside the little buses bringing people back to France.

https://vm.tiktok.com/ZNR6Q6P5C/

*Edited to correct country people were bought back to*
 
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Nicholas Lewis

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Yeah this is what I've heard before, they can't both be in use at the same time unless there is a neutral section in the middle, which may be the case I'm not sure.

I think these are the Channel Tunnel grid supply points: in France and UK

Interestingly the British one is just 132kV which may be a mistake as I also assume Channel Tunnel is an AT fed line which are normally from a Supergrid source only.
It is fed at 132kV but from Sellindge Supergrid substation which has a few GW of interconnectors connected there as well as being a 400kV node so its point of common connection is as an NR AT feeder system connection.
 

QueensCurve

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Not quite sure what you mean by that but one tunnel was blocked by the power failure and the other was blocked by a failed shuttle train.
So the failed shuttle train didn't cause a dewirement? There were two coincidental failures?
 

rvdborgt

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Is that no availability or no trains? Seems to be some conflicting news this afternoon.
Did they then at least offer overnight accommodation? (Which is a requirement if you're stranded for the night.)
 

samdring2001

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Appears on the face of it they're coupling up two Eurostars to go through the tunnel together... is that possible? Would they then run through as a 32 car train to Lille before uncoupling??
 

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QueensCurve

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I think it’s more likely that the overheads failed and tripped the power supply for both tunnels, stranding the train in the other tunnel.
I would have a certain level of disappointment that the two running tunnels can't be independently energised/isolated.
 

55002

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Appears on the face of it they're coupling up two Eurostars to go through the tunnel together... is that possible? Would they then run through as a 32 car train to Lille before uncoupling??
Showing separately now, looks like batch of 3 left St Pancras and are now awaiting entry to the tunnel..1901 Paris, 1804 Amsterdam and 1934 Brussels
 
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I would have a certain level of disappointment that the two running tunnels can't be independently energised/isolated.
Considering that on a normal double track railway each line is electrically seperate, this is surely the case on a route where each track are in seperate bores.

I think the problem is that because it's a crossover that failed, repairing the OLE nessasarily takes out both lines.
 

Taunton

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Incidents in long tunnels do seem to happen disproportionately at crossovers; the Swiss Gotthard Base derailment in 2023 was the same, so one would hope the Channel Tunnel, with its isolating doors between the tunnels, would have a design that allowed any failure on one side not to impact the other.

It would also be good to have off-the-shelf contingency plans for periodic dislocations, including crossover issues that put two (out of the three) tunnel sections down to single line working, with appropriate flighting of services, all just to be taken down and used as required. Every time there is a major issue there are hours of nothing happening while it seems the right person has to be found to decide what to do. From what has been written so far it sounds as if the entire tunnel is being worked single line.
 

DAL1189

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How accurate is the publicly available signalling maps at the Eurotunnel boundary? Traksy shows these two services have been waiting at the entrance of the tunnel for some time, which seems somewhat unbelievable unless there is ongoing works blocking the whole tunnel again.
 

Peterthegreat

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How accurate is the publicly available signalling maps at the Eurotunnel boundary? Traksy shows these two services have been waiting at the entrance of the tunnel for some time, which seems somewhat unbelievable unless there is ongoing works blocking the whole tunnel again.
It appears to be correct. BBC are reporting trains stuck outside the tunnel.
 
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