Published on
•Updated
ADVERTISEMENT
Multiple Eurostar trains were cancelled or significantly delayed on Monday due to a technical incident, creating chaos for passengers travelling to and from Paris with disruptions expected until the end of the day.
The French railway company SNCF blamed the disruption on a power outage near Moussy in the northeast of the country, which forced the closure of a critical section of the rail network north of Paris.
Several Eurostar trains running between Paris and London and Brussels and Amsterdam were cancelled, with two trains on the Paris-Brussels line returning to their original stations.
The online timetable for Eurostar showed six trains from London to Paris had been delayed, some by up to two hours, with a further five services cancelled.
Furthermore, TGV lines in northern France have been suspended until further notice.
The power failure first affected the lines at around 8 am, causing chaos by noon and requiring “major repairs” to fix.
Trains to and from the French capital’s main Charles De Gaulle Airport were also affected, with all TGV lines to and from the airport suspended, Euronews has learned. The local RER trains are still operating, however.
The delays and cancellations have caused mayhem at Paris Gare du Nord station, as there was no word about when train services would resume, and station announcements only repeated that some lines would be restored by the end of the day.
Passengers can “exchange their tickets free of charge or request a full refund,” a spokesperson for Eurostar said, but travellers are advised to postpone their journey if possible.
The widespread disruption on one of Europe’s busiest international railway routes is happening during the peak summer travel season.
Neither Eurostar nor SNCF have given a reason for the power outage.
In June, Eurostar passengers faced days of major delays and cancellations after two people died on the track in France and then cables were stolen near Lille.
In March, Eurostar services were disrupted when an unexploded WWII bomb was found at Paris’ Gare du Nord station.
And in July last year, the SNCF said it had been the victim of “several acts of malevolence” after fires were deliberately started along several high-speed lines, forcing service cancellations and impacting around 800,000 passengers.
