Eurostar: The catalogue of failings that caused transport misery

Poor maintenance was criticised in the report - one of the broken-down trains had no snow screens on its power cars and insufficient account was taken of the age of some parts of the locomotives.

Passengers endured overflowing toilets on trains and cold and darkness for hours on end, and Eurostar should have been better prepared to cope with the disruption, the report said.

Instead the high-speed train company had to improvise and its "provision of information to customers was inadequate".

The report's authors made 21 recommendations, saying Eurostar's maintenance procedures were insufficient to deal with the extreme winter weather conditions that led to the breakdown of the five UK-bound trains on the night of December 18 and 19.

"Routine maintenance procedures were inadequate," the report said, adding that urgent measures had already been taken and other work needed to be carried out before next winter.

The report was compiled by former GNER East Coast Main Line rail boss Christopher Garnett and French transport expert Claude Gressier.

They said today: "This incident caused some passengers distress and others enormous disruption to their holiday plans at a critical time. We believe there are three lessons to be learned.

"First, passengers need to be assured that the Eurostar trains are reliable and so improvements need to be made in this area as a priority.

"Second, if a train breaks down and passengers have to be rescued or evacuated, this must be done with greater speed and consideration, and more comprehensive emergency plans should be put in place.

"Third, in an emergency, passengers need to have prompt information and regular updates. Eurostar must improve the way it communicates with passengers and put in place new systems and practices to achieve that."

The 21 recommendations were divided into three sections:

Train reliability - engineering improvements that Eurostar should make to enhance the reliability of its trains and prevent passengers facing a repeat of the incidents that occurred in December;

Evacuation and rescue - improvements that should be made to tunnel evacuation and rescue procedures, to ensure passengers can be transported from the tunnel to their final destination, quickly and effectively following a breakdown, whatever its cause;

Managing disruption and improving communication - improvements that Eurostar should make to its procedures to better assist passengers and provide more effective communication in times of disruption. Eurostar should also put in place better arrangements with other organisations to provide assistance to passengers.

The report authors said they recognised that the weather in Pas de Calais on December 18 was extremely severe, with heavy snowfall.

They found that Eurostar trains had not undergone sufficient winter weather preparations to withstand these conditions and maintenance procedures should be revised.

While the first train to fail was recovered quickly, four further trains then broke down in rapid succession and passengers from two of them had to be evacuated on to Eurotunnel passenger shuttles inside the Tunnel. It was the first time this had happened in 15 years of operation.

One of the trains from which passengers had to go on to a shuttle train was carrying families who had been to Disneyland Paris.

The report described the dreadful conditions on the shuttle, with overflowing toilets and pregnant women and small children forced to sit on "greasy floors or to lean against the sides of the carriage".

At one point passengers had to designate one carriage as "an open toilet area".

Eurotunnel said it was pleased to note that the report confirmed the safety of passengers and operations through the Channel Tunnel was ensured effectively by Eurotunnel and the public authorities.

The firm said in a statement: "Eurotunnel will now study the detailed findings of the report.

"Without waiting, however, Eurotunnel is ready to share its experience of locomotive snow protection technology with Eurostar to ensure that such incidents never happen again.

"Even if it requires going beyond its strict responsibilities, Eurotunnel is committed to continue to support Eurostar in its implementation of recommendations to improve its service to passengers, whilst continuing to maintain the integrity of the existing safety procedures in the Tunnel."

Eurostar said: "We fully accept that the handling of the disruption was unacceptable and are very sorry for the inconvenience and discomfort that we caused to our passengers.

"The review's findings are comprehensive and set out a clear list of recommendations to improve the reliability of our service in extreme winter weather and the quality of our passenger care during periods of disruption. The board of Eurostar has committed that all of the review's recommendations will be implemented as quickly as possible and a series of actions is already under way to address the issues raised.

"Going forward we will be investing more than 30 million to improve the resilience of the Eurostar trains during severe winter conditions as well as passenger care during disruption and customer communication both inside and outside the Tunnel.

"Of the 30 million, 12 million had already been earmarked for some time for a new tunnel communications system but the additional funding is new investment."

Richard Brown, chief executive of Eurostar, said: "I know we let our passengers down before Christmas and I am determined to put things right. Our priority is to win back the confidence of our passengers by taking all the action necessary to prevent this ever happening again. Our focus now is on fully implementing the recommendations from the review as well as those additional measures that we have identified ourselves to improve our service."

The report said that in reviewing the causes of the breakdown of the trains, it had become apparent that the standard winter-weather procedures followed by Eurostar were "not suited to the actual weather conditions experienced".

The report added that the problems of snow getting into the trains' works and the build up of condensation when passing into the warm tunnel from the cold outside "were not fully recognised at the time when the Eurostar power cars were being designed".

Describing the conditions on the stranded trains, the report spoke of:

No announcement and passengers having no idea what was happening;

Parents on the "Disney train" removing their children's clothes, leaving them in underwear and nappies as temperatures rose;

Confusion over whether passengers being evacuated from trains to shuttles could take luggage or Christmas presents with them;

Many passengers failing to understand the strongly French-accented announcements.

The report went on: "It seems very clear that Eurostar did not have adequate emergency procedures in place for managing passengers from several broken-down trains."

Eurostar said the reliability of its trains was paramount and central to restoring passengers' confidence, adding: "Immediately following the disruption in December we carried out a series of tests and introduced certain modifications and operational measures which proved effective in the subsequent severe weather conditions in January this year.

"We will also implement additional technical measures over the coming months to strengthen the reliability of our trains in line with the recommendations in the review.

"To ensure that we fully identify all of the necessary modifications we will establish a dedicated technical group of engineering specialists from Alstom, Eurostar and SNCF. This group will carry out an in-depth feasibility study, consulting with other railways operating in difficult weather conditions and in long tunnels. The solutions recommended by this review will then be carried out as part of the mid-life overhaul of our trains."

Eurostar said it would implement other improvements, including strengthening passenger care arrangements, improving communication with passengers, such as text and email messages, drafting in extra staff during disruption and developing more robust alternative transport arrangements.

The rail operator said it would invest 12 million in a state-of-the art communication system which would "significantly improve" communications within the tunnel and buy, with Eurotunnel, two further rescue locomotives.

Eurostar also announced today that it is appointing Richard Morris as director of business and service continuity reporting to the chief executive, leading a dedicated team responsible for implementing the programme of improvements recommended by the review.

He was most recently managing director delivery at the Crossrail project. Prior to this he was operations director at Chiltern Railways and before that he was railway operations director for Eurotunnel.

Mr Brown added: "Our duty now is to ensure that we quickly regain the trust of our customers. My immediate priority is to implement the plan to deliver on the review recommendations and drive the new corporate structure through to completion. Together with the other measures announced today this will secure the operational robustness and quality of service that our customers rightly expect."

Mr Garnett told a news conference weather conditions in Calais and Kent on the evening of December 19 were "very difficult", with heavy snow and widespread disruption to road and air travel.

About 40cm of snow fell around the Calais terminal in a short space of time, forcing it to close for a time, with 670 cars and 260 lorries waiting inside the terminal area.

On the Kent side of the tunnel, the M20 motorway was "virtually impassable" and there were 1,000 cars at the Eurotunnel terminal near Folkestone.

He described how trains became trapped inside the tunnel, leading hundreds of passengers, including families with young children, to be taken off a Eurostar train and led to a shuttle, normally used to transport vehicles through the tunnel.

He described conditions on the shuttle as "appalling", with 670 passengers but only limited toilet facilities.

"Conditions started to get very bad, very quickly. Our concern is that there were three medical staff walking through the train providing first aid, but no one walked through to see how people were and to explain why they could not be taken off in Coquelles because of the deep snow.

"They had 90 minutes of a pretty stressful time."

Theresa Villiers, shadow transport secretary, said: "This incident caused untold misery to the passengers affected by it. We need reassurance from Eurostar and Eurotunnel that lessons will be learned in order to guard against similar disruption recurring in the future.

"Clearly work needs to be done to ensure that the response to breakdowns in the tunnel is greatly improved so that passengers are not left stranded for hours as they were in this case.

"Passengers deserve to see swift action to tackle the failures that occurred in December and which blemished the world-class service we have come to expect from Eurostar."

Among the recommendations made were:

Modification and redesign of some parts of the trains;

Improving battery life of emergency equipment;

Improving communications with passengers in an emergency;

Putting in place measures to mobilise a rescue train quickly, with crew, food and drink on board;

Better communications between the company and its customers, with better handling of delayed and evacuated passengers at Eurostar terminals;

The acceptance of Eurostar tickets by other train companies in the event of an emergency.

Next page: One family's nightmare A mother who recounted her family's ordeal during the pre-Christmas Eurostar travel chaos on Facebook urged a report into the fiasco today to reflect "the human side" of the saga.

Emma Powney was stranded in the Channel Tunnel for hours with her partner Tom and two young children - Joshua, five, and Noah, two - after their train broke down.

The 30-year-old, who was returning from a trip to Disneyland Paris, said her "exhausted, cold and tired" family were treated "worse than cattle" on the night of December 18 and 19.

In words that were repeated, with her permission, on a Rail magazine blog, Ms Powney described the conditions in her carriage, the lack of information, the heat, the need for nappies for the youngsters, the awful toilet conditions, the stress and how she finally "lost it".

And she said she was forced to use blankets bought at Disneyland to lay on the "wet, filthy floor" so her children could go to sleep.

Describing the conditions after some hours stuck in the tunnel, Ms Powney said: "The train starts to get hot. Really hot. An argument breaks out at one end of our carriage between a group of adults that turns nasty.

"At the other end, a passenger is trying to force the doors open so we can get some air. The lights go on for a brief time, only to go off again, so adding to the already difficult situation."

She said a paramedic brought out a woman who was "suffering badly" from claustrophobia.

Meanwhile, "kids have been stripped to their nappies and underwear, and what water we had is being shared between them all".

She went on: "A little boy vomits everywhere and his dad is understandably shaky. Another lady, with her child wearing just a nappy, bursts into tears and gets hysterical, so I have a go at calming her down. My eldest son, five, has clearly had enough and sobs uncontrollably.

"Still no communication from Eurostar. We are still sitting/puking/walking/crying/hyperventilating - all in the dark."

Later Ms Powney said passengers were told to cross to another train, and she had to "rely on strangers" to help get her children and their holiday shopping transferred.

"Finally, around 4am, I lost it - and it all got too much," she wrote.

After more hours of waiting, the family finally arrived at Folkestone where another riot broke out before she eventually called the police when a woman shoved a Eurotunnel worker.

Further complications and frustrations ensued before the journey finally came to an end at Ashford in Kent at 10am on December 19, with the family getting home an hour later.

She said: "The complete lack of communication was unbelievable. We were treated worse than transporting cattle - I'm sure at the very least they would have been fed."

Ms Powney, who was travelling to London this morning to read the inquiry report into the chaos, branded a subsequent offer of 150 compensation from Eurostar "insulting" and said the family simply wanted their holiday back.

"I don't want the human side of all this to be lost amid the train technical stuff," she said.

"The offer of 150 compensation from Eurostar was insulting. I have not accepted it. The one thing I want from them is something they can't give me and that is to get our holiday back."

The family saved for two years to spend 2,500 on the trip of a lifetime, only to find their journey home to Halstead in Kent took around 17 hours.

Ms Powney continued: "Joshua is old enough to separate our five-day stay at Disneyland from the terrible Eurostar experience. But when I ask Noah if he enjoyed his trip, he just says 'No, the train broke'.

"We were left in the tunnel with no idea what was going on. This was supposed to be a wonderful holiday and, to start with, it was. Disneyland was magical, it snowed. But everything was ruined in the end. I have lost all faith in Eurostar."