Le Shuttle breakdown.

A snowHead

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-62655148

Was anyone on here caught up in this, how do you feel it was handled? As someone who uses it a lot I often wonder.

A snowHead

Yep was on there.

It was appalling.

Arrived at 15-15 for a 17-20 dep, and the car park was rammed, unusually for a midweek crossing.

Everything was progressing, we were A and the Xs were being called forward.

Then the chap in the car park told us to go through. Result, we thought as it seemed a bit early.

The women in the UK Customs was chatting away, asking about where we live in Austria, why did we chose it, etc etc. She must have had the heads up there was no rush!!

We then literally got put into whatever lane the staff was pointing, so we were in X,Y,Z even Bs and Cs.

Then the board announced delays of 30 mins on each train, then changed to 60 quite quickly.

Then whispers of why the delay, with a train stuck in the tunnel. Wife went onto their twitter account, still the bog standard " There are technical issues, and we are going to get you on a train as quickly as possible"

Then people on the train started tweeting, so no way should ET still just reply with the same as above.

There was no official update from them at all.

Then at about 7pm, a lane went through the flexiplus lane, understandable.

The notice board as still telling each group, x y z etc what their expected time of dep was. But we were all mixed up in various lanes!!

Again absolutely no info coming out of either ET, or staff on the ground.

By this time the car parking area was rammed, a bit of a Dunkirk spirit set in.

Then the next lane of flexiplus left. So the locals were beginning to get restless, and they had been queuing now by this time 5/6 hours in some cases.

The only info anyone was getting was from travellers on the broken down train, and they had waited hours before being removed via the safety tunnel.

Finally about half nine, a "normal" queue departed and boarded.

We finally were loaded on at quarter to ten.

But wait for it, we didnt leave Calais.

We had to sit and wait as the other trains loaded, hadnt departed either. The ET staff said there were at least 4 trains ahead of us waiting to depart.

The normal tannoy individual had welcomed us on board, but didnt tell us there would be another hour before we actually left Calais.

So we finally left Calais at twenty to 11 local time.

The communication was shocking. By this time my wife had noticed that customers were being advised not to turn up

2 points though.

We asked if it was possible to leave, get a hotel for the night, and come back again in the morning. Nope, no option to leave the port.

Another passenger asked if it was possible to upgrade to FP . Nope that wasnt possible either.

In summary, ET communication was non existant.

FP got the benefit of what they had paid the extra for, though someone on the early train, had said they had crossed half full. They didnt top up with "normal" passengers.

But at the same time, they were P... off normal customers, and there were a lot of them. Probably a ration of 50+ to one FP So at what cost did they prioritise those on FP?

I have no issues with those looking to pay more and get priority, but hour after hour during the crisis, there were a lot of upset people cursing ET.

And to make matters worse personally, we get down the A303, google maps said closed. Get to the roundabout at Amesbury, sign saying 24th/25th/26th. Last night was the 23rd.... needless to say, further on, yep road closed. Bollox, at 1 o`clock in the morning the last thing we needed. It got worse, further on when nearly home, another road closed. By that time we were laughing.

So ten and a half hours from Kirchberg to Calais, (really does make a difference leaving at 4 in the morning traffic wise) and nearly 11 hours hanging including the so called three hour journey back on the other side.

From one of the easiest to Calais, to a journey from hell in a matter of hours.

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

when it goes wrong at ET its usually spectacularly so.............

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Reading some of the twitter posts, we may have been one of the lucky ones re how long we waited..

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I'm a little hesitant to write this because I really don't want to come across as smug in any way, so apologies if it does and makes any of you angry - I'm fully aware of how lucky we were, but here goes...

Yes, we were there too (but not on the stuck train). It was obviously handled really really badly, but personally we got away incredibly lightly.

(TL;DR, we had a high-vehicle Flexiplus booking and it was worth its weight in gold, but a lot of luck was involved too I think.)

Having left the mountains just after 8am (all below times are French times), we had a good journey north and started checking the travel status a few hours out from Calais. I think it was about 4pm when we noticed the website was indicating problems, but no specific details. We had no real choice so carried on anyway.

Arriving at Calais at about 5.35pm (I think), all the check-in kiosks seemed surprisingly quiet given the reports of delays, and we only had to wait for one car ahead of us in the FP+ lanes.

Middle child really wanted to nip to the main terminal building first for "food", but a quick glance over that direction showed that was going to be a Very Bad Idea. As @jafa said, the car park was rammed and queues were already building back from there towards the check in kiosks. So we overruled him and bypassed it as normal.

Absolutely nobody queuing at the passport kiosks (5.40pm I guess) so we sailed through there too, although very few kiosks were manned. A quick swab of the door handles, steering wheel and roof box by the French police and they politely waived us onwards about a minute later.

Flexiplus lounge was busy but not heaving. Screens showed only two departures at that time, something like 18:10 (closed) and 18:17 (final call). As there were no others scheduled we thought we'd better be quick and aim for the second one "just in case". So, a quick dash around to grab some snacks and drinks, then back to the car.

At this stage there was a smallish queue of vehicles trying to leave the FP car park, with nothing moving, but a minute or two later we all moved forward to the departure area. My guess is they'd let the FP departure lanes onto one of the trains which then freed the lanes up for everyone who was waiting in the FP+ car park.

So, we then got to the FP+ high vehicle departure lane and saw the queues of people in all the other lanes too. It looked like they'd been there a while, with people out of cars, walking dogs, playing with a rugby ball etc. Probably around 18:10 by this time I guess, so a bit over half an hour after arrival.

The main board showed two trains at that point, one something like 18:17 and the other 19:20 (give or take a few minutes). Then things ground to a halt. We were monitoring twitter and some of the messages were coming through from the stuck passengers who I think were on the 15:20 train.

Other messages were from people who had been queuing for a couple of hours already, and from people who were still arriving at check-in, but by that time they were being diverted to the overflow area first, presumably because the main terminal parking was now rammed. From looking at messages later, it obviously got a lot worse from then on, with people saying even the approach road got blocked.

Some people wanted to leave but couldn't, others succeeded in doing so and went to the ferries instead, but then reported queues there too due to more travellers than expected (so I guess insufficient personnel to handle them).

Sometime just before 19:00 our lane was let forward and we boarded a train. I certainly admit to feeling guilty that the FP+ vehicles were jumping what was obviously a big queue elsewhere at this point. However, the train didn't leave for a while, so we thought we'd perhaps counted our chickens too soon.

It actually departed at around 19:30 I think, but not at the normal speeds, and paused for a couple of minutes before entering the tunnel.

From the feel of things, I think we crossed over from one tunnel to the other at one stage, and then back again a little while after. The times on the phones switched to UK and then back to French again while this happened, if that makes sense (as though the phone signals in the two tunnels are set for the departure country). I assume that this was to go around the stuck train, because reading tweets later showed the passengers weren't evacuated for at least another hour after after.

Quite frankly, that's unforgiveable. There's no way people should have been left down there for five hours or so in my opinion, and Eurotunnel should have a lot of questions to answer in that respect.

So the crossing seemed to be slightly slower than normal, and I think we exited the tunnel at about 20:15 (still French time). The rest of the journey was thankfully uneventful and our 2 hour drive in the UK went as planned. Home about 9.30pm (UK time).

In summary, from arriving at the terminal just after 5.30pm, it was about two hours before our train departed at 7.30pm, which is only a little over an hour longer than I'd normally expect, allowing for check-in, passports and a reasonable toilet/snack stop in the lounge.

With hindsight I can't believe how lucky we were. Reading tweets when I got up this morning I could see many reports of 10+ hour delays, people sleeping in cars, no food/drink and so on.

Communication from Eurotunnel was shockingly bad. Things go wrong sometimes, we all know that, but the way events are handled are crucial and in this the company failed very badly. All along the messages were vague, generic, "there's been a problem" kind of message, saying delays of two hours (or three they later changed to). Telling people what's happening and why is surely not an unreasonable expectation. Then they can plan accordingly, cancel trips, make alternate arrangements, get enough food and drink in for the duration and so on. The unknown is the most difficult thing to accept.

As I said at the top, I'm well aware of how lucky we were last night. From arrival at Calais to departure on a train in about two hours, whilst others were delayed for ten or more hours, makes me feel a little sick with guilt to be honest, so I can't imagine what everyone else caught up in it feels and how angry they must be at the unfairness of it.

Sorry.

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We came back from Montalbert La Plagne yesterday, as posted elsewhere I decided to go Irish Ferries as it was £100 cheaper than the same tunnel crossing, had we gone with ET we would have been stuck as we would have got to the Tunnel at 17:30!
Irish Ferries - no problems out or back (in fact out left 10 mins early and got to Calais 10 early) the ferries interior are a little bit 'dated' (launched in 1996) but other than that quite pleasant.
BUT similar to @jafa, were making good time down the M3 to see a sign saying M3 closed for planned maintenance - sat nav live traffic didn't know so we pressed on to find the Winchester to Southampton stretch was completely closed! Sat Nav, Waze and Google Maps weren't showing closed. I guess UK Highways hadn't bothered to notify anyone. After queuing for 15 mins to get off the M3 some back roads around Winchester Chandlers Ford and Eastleigh we finally got home delayed by an hour or so ... Nothing compared to what happened at the tunnel!

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One thing missing from the ET story - those passengers that where evacuated - when did they get their cars back?
I assume they had to push/pull the train out and then unload it which can only be done by the car owners being there - was there then another huge delay waiting for that to happen?

After all it is free

From what I have heard, it was initially treated as a broken down train, then as some alarms had gone off which required an evacuation. It sounds like Shrew was very lucky being routed round the stricken train. There are two crossover points, effectively giving 6 sections in total.

I don't know what happens when an evacuation occurs, presumably after an alarm, they move the people into the service tunnel which has an overpressure system to keep out any smoke. I would suggest that the rescue train would come down the other tunnel, you would not want to risk reopening a tunnel with a potential train fire. So the whole thing grinds to a halt.

Given they know where each train is to the centimetre, it seems shocking that the communication was so bad, it only needs a bilingual twitter operator!

I've just received the usual post-travel "let us know how we're doing" survey email. I suspect they're going to get some choice responses to that this week!

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@shrew, Just curious -- what was the 'swabbing' for ??

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Id suspect its for explosives, not nice in a tunnel. Especially as it was the roof rack as well.

You know it makes sense.

Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:

As already said it was most likely for explosives in this case but I think swabbing can also be used to detect traces of illegal drugs.

A snowHead

I thought it was drugs. I've had my hand luggage swabbed at airports a few times.

A snowHead

It could be both, but the chap definitely said something I didn't understand apart from having the word "explosif" in it!

I've also had a laptop keyboard swabbed at airport security in the past too (after they've asked if anybody else has used it recently or it has been handled by a company IT department, presumably so you can't use that excuse if something is found).

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

I've been told at Eurotunnel in Folkestone that the swabbing is for explosives.

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We travelled on the Monday, Flexi Plus, as when I booked our Calais Folkestone trip it had all started to go pear-shaped Folkestone Calais, even though people said Calais Folkestone was not too bad, I did not want to chance it.

Limited queues at check-in & border patrol and we loaded our bags with sandwiches and drink from the FP terminal and got on to a train (High Vehicle) Flexi Plus in a very convenient quick time.

The purpose of the post is that whilst the food and drink were being consumed I joked, saying to keep some back just in case we ended up stuck in the tunnel!

I really feel for those that endured what sounded a horrific experience and do find it a tad disturbing to read how FP customers were able to board so easily etc

What is worse is that does it really mean you're best paying a massive premium to be sure you're nigh on assured of getting on a train at the correct time you booked, but managed the same with a simple standard fare only a few years ago?

I think for me at least the sad answer is yes Crying or Very sad

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Reading of these long delays makes me wonder if they have reopened the loos on the Eurotunnel trains as they were still shut re covid when we travelled at Easter?

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@snowymum, @andmelffion,

We were right at the front of the train on Monday and the doors to the section where the toilets are were closed.

See more delays yesterday, this time Calais, P&O.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11142911/Frustrated-passengers-Calais-stuck-six-hour-queues-trying-Dover.html

After all it is free

They were open on both the outbound and return trains for us, thankfully!

Toilets open for us on trips in both July and August though some were out of service.

The delays with the stuck train were obviously following a fairly serious event which will happen from time to time but the way the communication is described is absolutely bog standard. It is always poor and seems to me to be designed to avoid giving any useful information on what is really happening. The times of trains as booked and as shown at check-in are rarely the same as the ones shown in the departure area and the allocation of letters to trains seems to slip regularly.

My strategy is always to park as close as possible to the exit from the car park and head round to the controls as soon as possible (certainly as soon as your letter is announced, ideally anticipating it by a few minutes).

When it works as planned it is brilliant, when it goes wrong it can be woeful. Expensive now as well and no sign of Frequent Traveller tickets.

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@Layne, same here, in all the trips we've made since 2005, we've only had a couple of occasions where we have been delayed, and FP would not have made a difference to either of them.

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We started using it pretty well as soon as it started, 94/95 I think.

Prior to that for the previous 12 or so years, it was a mixture of various methods of getting across the channel from the Hovercraft to the high-speed Catamaran and ferries.

When I was planning on returning this time I nearly booked P&O and their new pets lounge, but they were no longer offering priority boarding etc

One trip many many years ago, the French farmers were blockading the Autoroutes so I drove the RN's and was reporting back to my news desk at the Evening Standard as to my progress as I think it was just before Xmas, so there was interest as a news story as others were going to face the same issue. Must have been in the very early days of mobiles, though not quite the brick ones Laughing

The best drama on a ferry was Swansea Cork, drove to Swansea in a howling gale, boarded the ferry had dinner, and retired to the bar, with the ship rolling around all over the place in stupidly strong winds.

Woke the next morning with seagulls around so thought that we were approaching Ireland, but they were Welsh seagulls and phone was still on Orange UK, all we had done was leave Swansea port and rode the storm out in the bay.

The ship's purser said it was the worst he'd ever seen it, in 40 odd years.

The other thing was that we had the dogs in the van; we were allowed to go down and take them out, but none of them wanted to pee inside !

Instead of 8-10hrs it was just under 24hrs - not too sure if it's still running?

Tunnel or ferry crossings (or times past hovercraft) things can go wrong. In my experience of nigh on 60 years of fairly regular channel crossings most of the times the crossing happen pretty much as scheduled. Fairly frequently there are minor delays, once in a while there are major delays.

It would be great if crossing providers actually told customers what was going wrong, when it was going wrong, but mostly they don't!

You know it makes sense.

Just seen this on the BBC regarding travel to the EU next year (taken from an article about Eurostar services from London-Disneyland Paris stopping)...

"New rules for visitors to the EU are due to come into force by the end of May next year. The system will mean travellers from outside the bloc must have their fingerprints scanned and photograph taken, instead of having their passport manually stamped."

Given the problems this year, how the heck will Eurotunnel or the Ferries cope with having to do this for all vehicle occupants? It's gonna be chaos Shocked

Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:

The Entry/Exit System (EES) is due to go live May 2023. Everyone will have to get out the car and provide fingerprints and photo. Not sure how this will even be possible at the Eurotunnel!

I would not book a vehicle on Eurotunnel after next May, or preferably busy August, to see how it unfolds.

The only good news here is EES is already 3 years late and there's every chance it will be delayed even further.

A snowHead

More chaos last couple of days in Calais with border force inadequacies it seems, this time affecting P&O especially.

https://www.kentonline.co.uk/dover/news/fury-over-huge-queues-amid-severe-delays-at-border-control-272703/

A snowHead

ETIAS has been delayed until at least late 2023 https://www.schengenvisainfo.com/news/eu-postpones-launch-of-etias-to-november-2023/ . No specific reasons have been given but it is likely that one important reason is that currently there is no sensible option for land and sea borders (plenty of other busy Schengen border crossing points, not just Calais)

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

ETIAS is not the same thing as ESS.

ETIAS is the €7 charge every three years or new passport.

ESS is the thing that replaces stamps in your passport, but for some reason they have expanded it to include fingerprints and photos. This will work OK at airports and quiet land borders, but no way at Eurotunnel. There is no infrastructure for people to get out of their cars safely, or even space for it.

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Had a very easy trip through Eurotunnel yesterday 9:30 am. Pet Passport had one car in front and through various controls in 15 mins and onto an earlier than booked shuttle. All a bit odd as seems to have been delays earlier in the morning and think all shuttles were fully booked for most of the day. Generally seems to have been our experience over the years but we do avoid the normal very busy days.

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@HilbertSpace, EES is the technology required to implement ETIAS, nothing is going to change until November 2023 at the earliest. Whilst it is relatively easy to implement at airports no one has yet come up with a sensible solution at land and sea borders (this is not simply picking on brits). There is a commission report on all this which I have posted a link to previously but cant be bothered looking for at this time of day.

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I think that one thing that people fail to appreciate is that the train stuck inside the tunnel was safely evacuated. Yes it took time and was uncomfortable for those involved but everyone was removed within a reasonable period of time (it was a broken down train and not a disaster).

However, the communication from Eurotunnel should have been better with their contingency plans swinging into action quicker.

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Did Calais to Dover crossing on BH Monday and was really quite worried as nearly all crossings had been sold out for weeks and it had been flagged as a busy day.

Arrived to find near zero queues. Was good to see nearly all customs lanes open (good planning?). Flew through and placed into lane but then nothing for 25 mins. Staff member came round handing out sweets and I thought we were for it!

But left on next shuttle - equated to a delay of 30 mins so acceptable considering. Just wish their boards would be more accurate as something's not working with the system.

After all it is free

When we went through Eurotunnel last week, Calais>Ashford, it was the afternoon after the closure and evacuation. On the upside: they had the queuing after the arrival gates very well-sorted and vehicles were moving through pretty efficiently. We got an earlier train slot as well. And yes, the toilets were back in service. And they had 3-4 reps walking 'round the waiting zone available to help people, which is a good idea. Downsides: the letter allocations didn't match the boarding sequence, so while R1 and R3 were delayed to more than an hour after us, our 'R5' (there was no R2 or R4) boarded as predicted by the ticket rep, 50 minutes after we arrived. So quite a few people were getting caught out when their number was called, as it was out of sequence (I think this is why they had people touring the parking - if you assumed your '5' was going to board after '1'-'4' you'd easily miss the call). Then the train had a 'technical problem' for 20 minutes, with no air con, so it got very hot, but that was sorted.

As ever, Eurotunnel customer information was woeful. Especially considering their app was actively monitoring our journey towards Coquelles, according to my iPhone. The rep at Arrivals was good and her prediction of the loading time was spot-on. Once we get through the check-in gate, the app ended up saying we didn't even have a booking, although that reversed once we arrived in Ashford. As ever, an actual person beats an app every time.

Lesson#1: always go to a manned gate at arrivals if you can - their loading time estimate is fairly accurate.
Lesson#2: don't assume that your departure reference letter/number is sequential.

Common theme in all the tunnel threads (here and twitter) is lack of comms. I think we all get things go wrong, but just want to be told what is happening. Not sure whether Eurotunnel have cut back on staff or what, but they really can't seem to cope when they're running at peak capacity.

Help!!

Le Shuttle breakdown.

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