After 15 years of comparatively trouble-free operations, high-speed train company Eurostar is now facing huge challenges. The company's bosses must get to the bottom of a cold weather malfunction of trains that appears baffling - even to rail experts. And they must then win back the trust of the travelling public -a trust which will have been eroded by all the tales of travel misery that emerged this weekend after the train failures within the Channel Tunnel. If it was a simple mechanical failure of a piece of equipment, then things would be relatively simple for Eurostar. But what the company has said is that its problem with the trains this weekend has been to do with the changes between the sub-zero temperatures outside the tunnel and the 25C (77F) heat within the tunnel. Yet Eurostar has been running since 1994. There have been numerous cold snaps in that time, with the trains running from London through Kent - one of the UK's snowiest counties.
After 15 years of comparatively trouble-free operations, high-speed train company Eurostar is now facing huge challenges.
The company's bosses must get to the bottom of a cold weather malfunction of trains that appears baffling - even to rail experts.
And they must then win back the trust of the travelling public -a trust which will have been eroded by all the tales of travel misery that emerged this weekend after the train failures within the Channel Tunnel.
If it was a simple mechanical failure of a piece of equipment, then things would be relatively simple for Eurostar.
But what the company has said is that its problem with the trains this weekend has been to do with the changes between the sub-zero temperatures outside the tunnel and the 25C (77F) heat within the tunnel.
Yet Eurostar has been running since 1994. There have been numerous cold snaps in that time, with the trains running from London through Kent - one of the UK's snowiest counties.
Thousands of passengers have been left stranded after Eurostar cancelled all services and its chief executive admitted he did not know when trains would be running again. With five days until Christmas, it is a peak time for travel on Eurostar, with 20,000 people due to cross back and forth underneath the Channel each day. Engineers from both Eurostar and Eurotunnel spent the weekend investigating the rolling stock and the track to work out why five trains broke down on Friday night.
With five days until Christmas, it is a peak time for travel on Eurostar, with 20,000 people due to cross back and forth underneath the Channel each day.
Engineers from both Eurostar and Eurotunnel spent the weekend investigating the rolling stock and the track to work out why five trains broke down on Friday night.
