Eurostar passengers saw up to two dozen services between Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam and London cancelled or delayed on Wednesday.
As some trains ground to a halt, a passenger on a train in France claimed the electricity had been cut off, leaving travellers with no air conditioning for more than half an hour.
One passenger said, according to The Telegraph: “Eurostar train stuck for over half an hour now. Ventilation cut off, no communication for a quarter of an hour… it’s starting to get hot, passengers are getting impatient.
“‘We’re waiting for information from our driver. ‘We apologise for the inconvenience’ – but still no ventilation. It’s getting hotter and hotter.”
A Eurostar spokesperson told The Independent: “Eurostar services between London and Paris were delayed by one to two hours following an incident on the LGV Nord high-speed line this morning, where a person was struck by a TGV train.
“We are working closely with the French authorities and infrastructure teams to manage the impact and keep services moving. Customers were contacted directly with updates and options and asked not to arrive at the station early to help ease congestion.”
They added that the air conditioning issue affected a single train travelling from Brussels to Paris.
“Due to a technical fault, the train was stationed for 30 minutes, during which air conditioning was temporarily unavailable in half of the carriages,” the spokesperson said. “To ensure passenger comfort during this time, our team promptly provided bottled water to customers during the wait.”
Eurostar’s travel updates page displayed a list of delays and cancellations starting around 7am, although problems had started on Monday.
The website gave a host of different reasons for the disruption, including a death, temporary speed restrictions, “operational issues”, and over-running maintenance work.
Some services on Thursday and in August were also displayed as already being cancelled.
Other services missed out stops, such as the 7.26pm Brussels to London St Pancras, which did not stop at Lille.
Eurostar’s website added that national strike action on the Dutch network had hit both international and domestic trains to Amsterdam.
