Thousands freed from Channel Tunnel after trains fail

bbc ^

[darkside321]

More than 2,000 people spent hours trapped inside the Channel Tunnel after four Eurostar trains broke down due to cold weather.

The trains failed as they left the cold air in northern France and entered the warmer tunnel.

Some passengers were evacuated to car shuttle trains, while others remained on the stranded trains overnight.

Eurostar say the four trains have been moved from the tunnel and passengers are being transferred to England.

Meanwhile, more snow and freezing temperatures are expected for parts of Scotland and south-east and eastern England.

Heavy snowfall caused travel chaos, forced schools to close and cut off power supplies in parts of the UK on Friday.

Electrics failure

John Keefe from Eurotunnel, the operator of the Channel Tunnel, said the situation was "absolutely extraordinary".

"Four Eurostars broken down at one time - it's absolutely unprecedented," he said.

"There's never actually been an evacuation of a Eurostar train in the 15 years that the tunnel has been opened and last night we evacuated two whole trains to get people off."

Eurostar services have been cancelled until noon and will be severely disrupted at the weekend. Passengers are being advised not travel unless their journey is essential. The four trains were coming from Brussels and Paris, and Eurostar said the change in the atmospheric conditions caused a problem with their electrics.

A spokeswoman said some passengers were already back in England. She said the company was "extremely sorry" for the delays and refunds would be available for all those affected.

"We will also be looking at compensation," she added.

Many people are at terminals at either end of the tunnel, waiting to make the crossing or to be transferred to other stations in England...

[browardchad]

I hope the Brits' power grid holds up. Last year, Britain relied on France when they needed extra power but France is already overwhelmed due to the low temps and has had to bring in feeds from other countries.

Planning for this sort of emergency (or as they would call it, "anomaly"), is where the Euro climate billions should have gone.

[pnh102]

God is laughing at these morons. WHERE IS YOUR GLOBAL WARMING NOW?

Oh and speaking of which, there is a few inches of "global warming" my driveway which I must plow in a few hours.

[steelyourfaith]

The Chunnel ride is neat, but I'm thinking the passengers who were stuck are likely to be leaning to be "deniers" now based on this experience, as if the complete craziness of the warmers at the Copenhagen Caper wouldn't be enough. Finally, what were the ecotards and one-worlders thinking when they scheduled this meeting to push the Anthropogenic Global Warming ™ hoax at a high latitude country in the winter?

 

Tim Wirth and James Hansen knew how to better stage a climate fraud show for maximum effect way back in 1988:

Timothy Wirth, former Senator (D, Colorado), describes how the Senate hearing room was rigged to be artificially as hot as possible in 1988 for the roll-out of climate-superstitionist/astronmer James Hansen's testimony.

Video (0:51 in length) from a PBS Frontline program in 2007. Partial transcript here.

The smirk on this Wirthless jackass as he describes this caper is priceless.

Click image to launch: "Global Warming - the padding of an agenda"

Wirth's comments from above video:

"...we asked him if he (James Hansen) would testify."

"uuuuh , we called the Weather Bureau and found out what historically was the hottest day of the summer. Well, it was June 6 or June 9 or whatever it was, so we scheduled the hearing that day, and bingo: It was the hottest day on record in Washington, or close to it. "

"... What we did it was went in the night before and opened all the windows, I will admit, right? So that the air conditioning wasn't working inside the room and so when the, when the hearing occurred there was not only bliss, which is television cameras in double figures, but it was really hot. ..."

[darkside321]

Oh and speaking of which, there is a few inches of “global warming” my driveway which I must plow in a few hours.

---

Have fun ;-) same here it´s snowing like crazy since days!

[darkside321]

Planning for this sort of emergency (or as they would call it, “anomaly”), is where the Euro climate billions should have gone.

---

yep would have been a good idea. So it´s just business as usuall. (Part of they yearly madness when the winter arrives in Europe).

[bossmechanic]

I feel for the affected.
Call Al Gore....
perhaps he has a destiny to shovel snow.
Would be the first useful thing he’s done.

[Right Wing Assault]

It’s a good thing for these people that their leaders are working harder than ever to make sure the earth gets colder.

[sergeantdave]

Will the river Thames freeze over this year?

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

Further confirmation of Anthropogenic Global Warming. AGWT is extremely robust with respect to data. All observations confirm it at the 100% confidence level.

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

Global Warming sceptic initiates being taken to reeducation camps located under the English Channel.

[Thermalseeker]

...is where the Euro climate billions should have gone.

No problem! They can just call Obamalamadingdong on the red courtesy phone, he can give one of his amazing speeches and the trains will magically fix themselves! See how easy that was?

[DH]

You gotta love the new breed of electrical engineers of today. They seemed to overlook the fact that in all of their design wisdom they overlooked the fact that when a very cold train enters a warm and moist tunnel, condensation occurs on every piece that is cold.

That includes the sensitive electronics that control the train. I would bet that most control electronic boards are not conformal coated and that if so, the plugs and slide in terminals are not.

One of the most irritating things to me as an electronics design engineer are the simple things overlooked due to the lack of simple common sense by today’s designers. The old saying that “you can’t see the forest due to the trees” holds true.

[Neidermeyer]

AlGore? ,, nah ,, heres the superhero "The Shoveler"

[learner]

Hey DH, Thanks for the explanation. I noticed going from cold to warm, but was not sure why that would cause the problem. I understood when I read your post. Thanks

[Red Boots]

One thing missing from these articles is a clear explanation of why a temperature disparity would cause a shut down. Mr RB, who is pretty savvy about these things, being a temperature control person, thinks the temperature difference caused an area of heavy condensation, which likely shorted out numerous electrical connections. But it would be nice to have some information in the article.

[John-Irish]

Yes, quite a few inches of ‘’climate change’’ is falling on my driveway and every where else here along The Jersey Shore. I think I’ll ask Al Gore if I can borrow his snow-blower.

[JasonC]

Rings true...