Eurostar services cancelled

The company believes the cancellations are essential

Holidaymakers hoping to travel to France ahead of the Bastille Day celebrations have been hit by a 24-hour closure of Eurostar.

All Eurostar services were cancelled on Sunday as work was carried out on signalling equipment needed for the new £5bn high-speed Channel Tunnel Rail Link, the company said.

Passengers would be offered a full refund or travel on another day, Eurostar said in a statement on its website.

Buses have been waiting at Eurostar stations in London, Paris and Brussels to take any passengers left stranded by the cancelled services, a Eurostar spokesman said.

Passengers angry

The London to Paris bus service would take between six and seven hours compared with three hours on the train.

The London-Brussels service was expected to take five hours compared with a two hours and 40-minute journey.

The cancellations have angered passengers with seats booked.

I'm appalled by the British people's ability to know that there was going to be no return train to Paris and we were not advised about it Joan Randle, Canadian tourist

Yvonne and Bruce Webb, from Basingstoke, Hampshire, said they would miss a vital rail connection at the start of a holiday to Germany.

Mrs Webb said: "We are sick as a dog. We have got trains booked the other end in Brussels.

"We have got seats booked all the way through. We can get a refund of the tickets but not our holiday."

A Canadian group on a three-day trip to the UK said the cancellation had spoiled their holiday.

Joan Randle, 45, from Toronto, said: "I'm appalled by the British people's ability to know that there was going to be no return train to Paris and we were not advised about it.

Least disruption

"Now we are obliged to leave London a full day earlier.

"It would have been three hours, now it is going to be eight hours to travel back."

Eurostar's director of communications, Paul Charles, said: "We apologise to passengers who were planning to travel on 13 July.

"However, our research tells us that suspending our services the day before Bastille Day (14 July) is going to cause the least disruption to passengers.

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"It's never easy taking a decision which will affect customer travel plans to and from the Continent.

"Yet, this short-term disruption will provide long-term benefits through enhanced Eurostar journey times and reliability, via the high speed link."

Eurostar said the first phase of the Channel Tunnel Rail Link, the first major section of new UK railway to be built in over a century, was on time and on budget.

The link, due to be launched in the autumn, is the largest rail infrastructure project in the country and will allow Eurostar trains to Paris, Brussels and Lille to reach their maximum speed of 186mph on the English side of the tunnel.