Eurostar train fails again, leaving 700 stranded02: 22 22/02/2010, Jo Adetunji, Channel Tunnel, guardian.co.uk, news, rail, railway, transport, travel

Eurostar train fails again, leaving 700 stranded02: 22 22/02/2010, Jo Adetunji, Channel Tunnel, guardian.co.uk, news, rail, railway, transport, travel, news, world news UK Guardian Unlimited

Passengers have to transfer to a rescue train for fire service charge is divided into the road to London

Eurostar suffered another setback last night after hundreds of passengers were stranded when a train broke on the way to London.

British Transport Police said a rescue train was sent to pick up about 700 passengers after the train stopped running near Ashford, in Kent, around 10pm.

A passenger who was returning from France, told Sky News that the train suddenly stopped and the lights on the train left.

"It's getting quite hot, but people are very calm, very relaxed," he said.

He said the rescue train occurred shortly before midnight to take passengers from London.

Eurostar said the train stopped after a major technical problems that had not yet been identified. A spokesman said: "We are moving as fast as possible.

"We have put everything in the position of people who need to get taxis or hotels who need help themselves. Our priority is to ensure that service to our passengers."

He added: "We are fully investigating what happened. I do not know exactly what happened and why at this time. The priority now is to ensure that passengers are well cared for. For what concerns we have everything in place" . He said that all other services are running normally.

The incident is another to fall into a troubled Eurostar was criticized after a series of failures of the train during a heavy snowfall in December.

The service, which was paralyzed for several days, left more than 2,000 people stranded in the tunnel - at night - after four trains broke down due to cold weather, days before Christmas.

The breakdowns led to cancellations and major disruption and the company was forced to offer refunds or exchanges for all passengers must travel.

A train broke down in January, leaving passengers stranded in the tunnel for over an hour.

An independent investigation of chaos in the pre-Christmas trip criticized the signing of this month for not adequately protecting the engines of the trains from winter weather. He said passengers had suffered "terrible" conditions and said Eurostar was forced to improvise after the failure of the emergency plan of this type.

The trains are believed to have failed as he was leaving cold air in northern France and the warm air inside the tunnel, affecting the engine air intakes.

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