Anne Tilmont

 

EUROSTAR and a missed Christmas opportunity

I think by now the folks at #Eurostar must have grey hair.

Delays and problems galore this year. It all started in December with the blocked trains in the tunnel under the Channel - must have been a frightening experience... dozens of trains where cancelled. Something I found a real scandal is that that very Saturday the train wouldn't run... Christmas being a day off for the Eurostar crew you know. They where cosy at home, while they could have done a nice gesture to let at least SOME trains running to get some of the thousands of stranded people home. The perfect Xmas present...  In February the snow left so many stranded. Then this huge accident in Halle that blocked their tracks. I was one of  the few that could travel then, being brought back from Lille to Brussels by coach. Rather well organised but again the communication on the train was chaotic or inexistent, leaving a lot of people panicking (will I get on a coach, where is it?)

But then WHY do they sometimes treat  us, customers, like complete idiots? Two weeks ago the Eurostar stopped in the middle of nowhere. The scarcely delivered information was that we had probably to be dropped off at Ashford... not a nice perspective for a late train to London. But Ok everybody staid calm.

The reason? A so called 'ventilation problem'' in a tunnel before London (not the long Channel tunnel). Strange.. we would have been happy to hold our breath for a few seconds.. .Even stranger was that for full 25 minutes we stood still just before Ashford 'waiting for a platform to be cleared' haha. As if we where in busy Kennedy Airport... Ashford is just a sleeping station, mainly in use as an extra hub for the Eurostar. Eventually we could enter the station, and even (huge relief!) be dropped of in London. Really late but at least we were there. 

Yesterday evening there was only a minor delay (no explanation given at all), but I missed two trains in Brussels and was really lucky to have a late connection, or I could have joined the multiple homeless people sleeping there on the floor.

 

Filed under: chunnel communication customer information eurostar
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