Eurostar:

The popular Eurostar rail line between Paris and London will remain shut for a third day on Monday, and ticket sales have been suspended through Friday, Christmas Day, the company said, in the service's worst technical shutdown yet that already has left 60,000 travelers stranded during one of busiest travel periods of the year.

Five Eurostar trains stopped on their tracks Friday evening as they were inside the tunnel under the English Channel, leaving more than 2,000 people trapped in the dark and cold -- some for more than 12 hours, according to a Eurostar spokesman.

After conducting tests for much of the day Sunday, Eurostar officials said the cause of the breakdown was that cold, dry air from the freezing weather in northern France mixed with the warm, humid air of the tunnel and caused condensation that prompted the engines to shut down.

"Extreme weather can cause delays, but nothing like this," said the company spokesman, who said the shutdown for weather reasons was unprecedented. The Eurostar service was suspended for two days in September 2008 following a fire in the Chunnel, the 30-mile tunnel that runs between England and France.
"We will not start services again until we are sure we can get them through safely," Eurostar Chief Executive Richard Brown told BBC television, adding that normal service might not return for days. In a statement, Eurostar encouraged travelers to cancel their trips if possible or reschedule for a later date.

Yet with less than a week to go before Christmas, travelers fretted that their options for getting home are running out.
Tim Powell, a 30-year-old English teacher in Paris, ended up back at his house on Saturday night after a six-hour journey that took him as far as the northern French city of Lille before the train stopped and turned back.

Mr. Powell said he was hoping to get onto a Eurostar train on Monday. If not, he plans to make the journey to England by bus on Tuesday; the rail-transport service through the Chunnel has been unaffected.
"I'm annoyed I'm in Paris and not in London, and I'm worried I might not make it back at all for Christmas," he said.

French European parliamentarian Dominique Baudis was traveling to London from Paris Friday night when his train broke down. He said the trip took 12 to 13 hours, including six hours inside the tunnel.

Passengers were "without water, without any information and without any help provided to the most vulnerable passengers," he said.

Mr. Baudis said he plans to ask the European Commission to launch a formal inquiry, according to French news agency Agence France-Presse.

Three trains successfully made the journey under the Channel on Saturday, but suffered severe delays. Rachel Tiplady, a 34-year-old English writer living in Paris, got on the one Paris-to-London train that made it to England on Saturday, but the trip took more than 10 hours compared with the two-hour, 15-minute advertised time.

Ms. Tiplady's train broke down in the Chunnel before coasting to land in England. Then, another support train came to help tug her Eurostar to Saint Pancras station in London, but the support train then broke down outside of London, she said. A brawl broke out in one of the cars, and passengers sneaked into the bathrooms to smoke, she added.

"I felt like a refugee. Everyone was bedraggled and knackered," Ms. Tiplady said.
The chaos could damage Eurostar's reputation as the easiest way to travel between London and Paris and Brussels.

Tulip Siddiq, a 27-year-old researcher in London, chose to take the train over a plane to visit her brother in Belgium for the weekend. As of Sunday night, she was still waiting to leave.

"I was trying to be good and get the Eurostar [for my carbon footprint]," Ms. Siddiq said. "Flights tend to be delayed and a hassle ... And then it turns out it was Eurostar that was canceled."

Last week Eurostar train managers threatened to strike during the weekend over meal allowances before calling off the strike. Eurostar had said the strike wouldn't affect service.