Thought people may be interested to listen to an episode of BBC Radio 4's
The Report, which is airing this evening at 8.00PM.
You can download the podcast here:
Podcast
This is only my second post on this forum, and I certainly don't have the technical knowledge that a lot of people here do have. However, I remain very concerned by the incompetencies Eurostar demonstrated on the 18th December. It seems to me that they were terribly complacent as a company and that their staff provided no information to passengers over many hours in the tunnel - quite remarkable. The fact that the French
Chef de bord they interview answers questions in French demonstrates that, even if they are trained correctly in safety procedures (which, patently, they are not), Eurostar staff are not capable of communicating properly with a predominantly English customer base.
Eurotunnel's decision to allow trains 4 and 5 into the South tunnel with the other three having broken down is similarly amazing. Whenever there's a technical fault with an aircraft, it is carefully investigated and similar models around the world put right. There is no question of allowing a design that has failed once to continue in service, let alone one that has failed three times that same evening.
I think some of the blasé posters above should remember that this is a tunnel that has experienced three fires in its relatively short service history. (See:
Wikipedia) It is quite possible that in a future situation a breakdown and a fire will occur simultaneously. At the moment, Eurostar and Eurotunnel would not have my confidence that they were able to do everything possible to evacuate people quickly in such a situation.