Passengers left waiting four hours to board Eurotunnel trains

Four-hour queue chaos at Eurotunnel: Furious Britons slam ‘absolute joke’ Le Shuttle after being stuck overnight in ‘boiling’ cars with ‘hungry’ children’ waiting to board trains to UK… but operator insists services are running smoothly

Families took to social media to complain they were left stranded in queues of four hours or more
Came after a train breakdown late on Tuesday meant passengers had to be evacuated into a service tunnel
Eurotunnel Le Shuttle said in a tweet yesterday morning that they were ‘back to running normal services’
Their claim was met with angry ridicule by dozens of passengers who replied throughout the day

Furious Britons yesterday slammed Eurotunnel’s ‘absolute joke’ service after being stuck for hours waiting to board trains to the UK, even though the operator had insisted services were ‘back to normal’ following Tuesday’s chaos.

Families took to social media to say they were left stranded in queues of four hours or more, with some complaining of the lack of food or toilet facilities during the wait.

It came after a train breakdown late on Tuesday meant that passengers had to be evacuated into a service tunnel, where they complained of being stuck for nearly five hours in a situation was compared to a ‘disaster movie’.

A Eurotunnel Le Shuttle spokesman said the problem was caused by an alarm going off, but said in a tweet yesterday morning that they were ‘back to running normal services’.

However, their claim was met with angry ridicule by dozens of passengers who replied throughout the day.

One, tweeting at around 2pm, said: ‘Normal service? Not according to the departure screens at Calais… Or perhaps delays are considered normal?’

Another, writing this morning shortly after 4am, said that they had been waiting for a train for four hours without a ‘drop of information’ from Eurotunnel.

They added: ‘An unbelievable way to treat your clients, with complete distain. We should be almost home now. Thanks euro tunnel, for making the trip home pure purgatory.’

Writing in separate tweets, two other passengers branded the service ‘an absolute joke’. One said at around 6pm: ‘@LeShuttle is an absolute joke this afternoon. Lucky we don’t have a 3 young children in the car bored and boiling to death while ‘waiting’ to board.

Responding at gone midnight, another added: ‘Still an absolute joke this evening too! Nowhere to get food for 4 hungry kids after being on the road for 12 hours, and now been stuck ‘waiting to board’ for the train that was meant to have left ages ago.’

A photo sent to MailOnline by another traveller showed the extent of queues at border control points, with problems allegedly being partly caused by each car having to stop for around three minutes so their documents could be checked.

They added: ‘Border forces are working like in slow motion unfortunately. Was staying in this queue for more than 7 hours…that’s unacceptable without water food and toilet facilities’

There were queues at border points at Calais last night caused in part by delays to departures of the Eurotunnel service. Above: A photo of the queues that was sent to MailOnline by a passenger who said they had been waiting for ‘more than seven hours’

Eurotunnel Le Shuttle had claimed on Twitter that they were ‘back to running normal services’ after the chaos caused by the train breakdown. But furious passengers quickly responded to ridicule the claim

Other passengers responding to Eurotunnel Le Shuttle’s claim that services were back to normal yesterday also hit out at the firm’s claim.

One, writing shortly before 1pm, said: ‘Normal services? That’s false for starters. Got here 2hs before our train.

‘Noticed the letter/number on our ticket wasn’t on the board, then get told our train is delayed but it’s not known when. Online also up until recently said it was running normal so clearly you have no clue.’

Another, writing shortly before 8pm, said: ‘Was due to depart over 2hrs ago!! Was taken through passport control over an hour ago and now been sat in a car park waiting with no access to food or drink.’

A third, writing just before 4pm, said: ‘This is not accurate. I’ve been delayed more than one hour.’

Tuesday’s problems affected the 3.50pm service from Calais to Folkestone. The train was carrying 100 vehicles at the time.

Eurotunnel said they were provided with food and drink as the original shuttle was brought out and they were eventually reunited with their vehicles.

Passengers complained of long delays, with some suggesting they were stuck in the tunnels for more than five hours.

One, tweeting at around 2pm, said: ‘Normal service? Not according to the departure screens at Calais… Or perhaps delays are considered normal?’

Another writing shortly before 1pm, said: ‘Normal services? That’s false for starters. Got here 2hs before our train’

A third, writing just before 4pm, said Eurotunnel’s claim was simply ‘not accurate’, and added they had been delayed for ‘more than an hour’

Videos on social media showed holidaymakers walking through the alternative tunnel alongside the 31-mile rail route between Britain and France, some with suitcases and dogs.

Travellers in Calais were told to stay away from the terminal until 6am on Wednesday, with pictures showing gridlock at the shuttle terminal late into Tuesday evening.

Eurotunnel defended the time taken to resolve the incident, saying operations such as this ‘do take time’ but are for the safety of everyone and ‘must be conducted carefully’.

Sarah Fellows, 37, from Birmingham, took 18 hours to return home from a family holiday in France after the ‘utter carnage’ of the evacuation.

She said: ‘The service tunnel was terrifying. It was like a disaster movie.

‘You were just walking into the abyss not knowing what was happening. We all had to stay under the sea in this big queue. Fire and rescue were there.

‘There was a woman crying in the tunnel, another woman having a panic attack who was travelling alone.

‘They were expecting really older people to walk for a mile down the middle of a tunnel under the sea.

‘It was utter carnage when we arrived in Folkestone as they hadn’t really prepared for us arriving.

‘It just wasn’t organised of how to evacuate that train.

‘I was panicking at one point and Border Force told us the tunnel had been evacuated one other time in the last 17 years, not recently.’

A spokesman said on Wednesday morning: ‘All services are back to normal, with no waiting for passengers on site.

‘The incident followed an alarm on board a shuttle carrying 100 vehicles.

‘The shuttle was brought to a controlled stop and inspected. As a precautionary measure, for their safety and comfort, we transferred the passengers on board to another shuttle, via the service tunnel (which is there for exactly that purpose).

The delays came after passengers were left stranded for several hours when a Eurotunnel train broke down between Calais and Folkestone on Tuesday

The passengers were told to evacuate from the front of the train into a service tunnel to make their way to a second locomotive to bring them to Folkestone

One passenger described the situation as like a scene from a ‘disaster movie’. They took 18 hours to return home from a family holiday in France after the ‘utter carnage’ of the evacuation

‘Operations like this do take time, but they are for the safety of everyone and must be conducted carefully.

‘Unfortunately that means other customers can suffer extended crossing times, as was the case last night.

‘However, we put on additional departures to try to reduce that as much as possible. By 6am on Wednesday, everyone who was caught up in the incident had been carried across, diversions removed, and we are now back to normal services.

‘Whilst some passengers experienced a longer journey than planned, everyone was kept safe at all times.

‘We apologise to anyone who got caught up in the incident, but we stress that we will always put customer safety above everything.’

Eurotunnel Le Shuttle have been approached for comment.

Source: Read Full Article