I used to like travelling by Eurostar.

Stretching over 39km under the ocean, the Channel Tunnel is the one of the biggest projects of it's kind. Travelling between the UK and France or Belgium by Eurostar train is great because a two hour journey is two hours of useful time, unlike flying which – though faster overall – is far from relaxing and full of annoying stretches of dead time.

This time around however it was not to be.

I spent two days at a client near Lille in France, and was booked on the 8:30pm Eurostar back to London (Ironically, to work remotely on a Paris-based project). I arrived at Lille nice and early, with enough time to spare for a bite to eat. Then I heard the announcements: All trains across the channel were cancelled due to a fire in the tunnel.

This is where the fun started.

Having experienced delays and cancellations by airlines several times, I expected the Eurostar staff to be their usual helpful and professional self and look after their passengers.

Hah! I asked about plans for stranded passengers and was treated to the best example of the famous Gallic Shrug I’d seen. “Find a hotel” was their most helpful suggestion to me, along with a business card for ‘International Customer Relations’ to contact about a refund for my ticket. Nothing else. Bear in mind this was 5 hours after the tunnel had been shut!

Luckily I found a hotel room right across the road from the station (it was raining too, so I really wasn’t in the mood for exploring).  Attempts to contact ‘International Customer Relations’ the following morning proved futile. Their website? The previous night it contained a contact telephone number for stranded passengers, but the following morning it was gone. Perhaps they thought passengers would magically teleport themselves back home overnight? Nevertheless I discovered that train service had been organised to take passengers to Calais, followed by a shuttle bus to the ferry port from where we’d be shipped (literally) across the channel. Fair enough, sounds like a plan.

This is where the fun REALLY started.

11:30am: Train arrives to take us to Calais, we get on. We get the shuttle bus at the other end, so far all seemed to go according to plan. This was however the last time we saw a Eurostar staff member for a long time...

12:00pm: Bus arrives at the Calais Ferry Port, along with all the other traffic that cannot travel through the tunnel anymore.

12:20pm: There were several other coaches in front of us at border control, and after 20 minutes without moving, we were told by the driver that it would be quicker to get out and walk to the foot passenger ticket office and board the ferry that way. Moooo! Baaaa! Several busloads of Eurostar passengers got off and herded themselves into a huge queue in front of the ticket office.

12:50pm: “No, No, No! You should not get off the bus!” we were told by SeaFrance, like naughty schoolchildren. “But the driver told us” we cried in our defense. Ah. We’re not at fault. Bad driver! Everyone get back on the busses.

1:00pm: Moo! Baa! The herd stampedes towards the 4 waiting coaches. Only... we are confronted by a bunch of confused looking Japanese tourists. When the dust settled, we established that the coaches were for them and ours had all disappeared.

1:15pm: We were given a choice: Wait for the buses and get free travel across the channel or buy our own ticket and use the pedestrian entrance.

Moo! Baa! The herd split, the Moo’s went to the ticket office and the Baa’s decided to wait for the bus. I said ‘Moo’ and joined the ticket queue, since it showed more promise of getting me on the next boat than a bus that wasn’t there.

2:10pm: Got my ticket at last!

2:40pm: Board ferry, finally get a chance to have something to eat (which I still have to pay for mind you!). I don’t recall seeing any of the Baa folk. Wonder if the bus turned up...

4:45pm: (3:45pm UK Time) Arrive in Dover. See first Eurostar staff member since 11:30am. Wanted to touch him to see if he was real. We get bundled onto one bus to take us 50 metres to immigration, get out, get our luggage, go through immigration, board another bus to take us to Dover train station.

4:05pm: (17:05 French time) Arrive at train station. Get told there’s a train for us at 17:00pm, goes to Ashford where we need to change to another train to take us to London. I spot a regular service train leaving in 15 minutes. Takes 2 hours to London, but I’m not chancing anything organised by these guys.

7:00pm: Home at last, nearly 24 hours later than planned and stunned at the utter disregard for customer service. The amazing thing is I can do this journey by car in under 5 hours.

Oh... wait a minute, this is a site about techy and businessy stuff. OK, so what lessons can be learnt from this?

Collaboration

It is not impossible that things can go wrong - especially in a very long tunnel under the ocean. The companies involved perform emergency drills, so they are definitely aware of this possibility. They even perform an excellent job of getting people out mostly unharmed. Yet they appear to forget that there are consequences. It seemed on this occasion that the rail and sea companies had never worked on such a procedure before. The bigger question is whether a company should collaborate with their competitors to be able to cope with unexpected scenarios? It appears so.

Communication

5 hours after an incident and Eurostar still have no idea what to do with the passengers. The official statement in the news was that there are ‘too many passengers’ to help them.  This kind of excuse on national news beggars belief and to me sounds more like a public relations disaster.

2000 passengers? Erm... they are in the travel business and London is a pretty big place with lots of hotels! I remember being stranded on a flight stopover and getting carted an hour’s drive to the other side of Vienna because of a shortage of accommodation. At least the airline made an effort. (Eurostar did make a U-turn on that later and put people up for the night).

Bear in mind also that travelling by Eurostar is often more expensive than flying...

Customer Service

Now here’s where I could really start ranting, but thankfully I'll spare you further agonny as I’ve already said most of what I have to say. Let’s just summarise:

• 5 hours after an incident and still not knowing if/how to assist your customers is pretty dismal.
• Telling passengers to "find a hotel" is not going to win any loyalty. Cost issues aside, a spot of helpfulness would have been nice.
• Nearly three hours of confusion and nobody having a clue at Calais with no staff member in sight is beyond belief. The length of time was ample to get someone on the scene. Even if the fire wasn't their fault, they were still the ones responsible for getting us to our destination.
• Removing the incident contact number from the website the following day was just bizarre.
• With no Eurostar staff in sight, the communications director of SeaFrance Ferries stepped in and did an excellent job of trying to keep things together in the face of an angry mob that had been abandoned by their travel company.
  
  Guess who's my first choice for future travel to France...

Thanks for reading,

Mike