Four cross-Channel trains withdrawn on Tuesday as broken cable slows models down on way to Paris fashion week
Eurostar passengers are enduring more delays after the Channel tunnel train company cancelled services following an evening of chaos in which thousands of customers were held in trains for up to nine hours.
Four trains were cancelled on Tuesday morning: one London-Paris service, one London-Brussels, one Brussels-London and one Paris-London.
On Monday night thousands of Eurostar customers were held in trains for hours as the cross-Channel service suffered cancellations and severe delays due to emergency repair works.
Eurostar said the disruption, which affected customers including designers and models making their way to Paris fashion week, was caused by a power cable failing on the French side of the track.
Dozens of international trains had to be diverted from their high-speed line on to regular branch lines for safety as the power company EDF made emergency repairs to the broken cable.
Therese Kelly, who was stuck for eight hours, told the BBC: "We had no announcements about why the train was so delayed or why it kept stopping. The train didn't move for hours. The whole train journey was brutal, totally brutal."
Model Laura Bailey, a face of Marks & Spencer, tweeted: "Eurostar rage more civilised than easyJet rage, but only just. #fashionablylate?"
Ryan Armstrong, who was travelling to Amsterdam via London, said he missed his connecting flight because of the delays. He said: "We were basically on the train for nine hours. We hardly moved. There was a lot of standing still. At one point the power was cut so we couldn't see anything or get any information."
After cancellations on Monday night, a further four trains were cancelled on Tuesday morning, including the 9:12 from London to Paris.
Eurostar apologised for the severe delays but said the problem was "out of its control" as the broken power cable was not part of its train service but belonged to EDF.
A spokesperson said the re-routing of trains off the high-speed line caused a backlog of Eurostar trains but that, aside from the morning cancellations, all services had returned to normal. "We were always going to get people to where they wanted to be. But the speed at which this happened was controlled by how quickly we get the backlog moving again," the spokesperson said.