Eurostar delays London to Paris: Cable theft adds to passengers' woes after double death on tracks
Rail services across northern France - including the Eurostar - are facing a difficult day after a disruption double-whammy.
Yesterday saw tragedy on the tracks near Lille as two people died in separate incidents on the line. It meant that some passengers trying to get back to the UK were stranded on the continent as trains could not run for several hours.
But to add to the woes of the French railways, now it has emerged that 600m of cabling has been stolen. Engineers are on site, according Lille Actu, but the size of the theft means that there will be problems all day. Nine cables are said to have been cut over a 70m stretch of the high speed line.
"It is possible to run these trains on conventional lines, but it will congest them, and their capacity is limited," SNCF Hauts-de-France told Lille Actu.
Trains are being diverted via Douai–Arras to connect with the high-speed line, but many have been cancelled.
Earlier today a Eurostar rep told a passenger who said his elderly mother was stuck in Paris: “Apologies but it's total chaos due to 2 accidents involving people and a cable theft.”
As of 8.45am today, the Eurostar website says that the 8.01am, 10.31am and 4.01pm services from St Pancras to Paris are cancelled. In the other direction, the 7.12am and 8.42am were cancelled, as is the 11.12am.