Passengers face hours of delays and mass cancellations after copper raiders strike in Lille – just 24 hours after track deaths threw services into chaos
Eurostar passengers are trapped in a perfect storm of travel misery after opportunistic thieves ripped up 600 metres of copper cable overnight – plunging services into chaos for a second consecutive day.
Thousands of frustrated travellers face severe delays and cancellations after the brazen theft in Lille forced trains onto alternative routes, adding hours to journey times between London, Paris and Brussels.
The fresh nightmare comes just 24 hours after two separate fatalities on French rail lines left trains and crews stranded in the wrong places, creating a domino effect of disruption.
The great cable heist
Under cover of darkness, thieves struck at the heart of the cross-Channel rail network, targeting valuable copper cables near the northern French city of Lille.
The audacious criminals made off with a staggering 600 metres of cable – that’s more than six football pitches worth of copper ripped from the trackside.
Rail bosses were left scrambling to reroute services around the damaged section, but with trains already out of position from Tuesday’s incidents, the knock-on effects have been catastrophic.
Double whammy of disruption
Tuesday’s tragedy saw two separate fatalities on French rail lines, bringing services to a standstill and leaving trains and crew members scattered across the network in all the wrong places.
Just as Eurostar was trying to piece together its shattered schedule, the cable thieves struck – delivering a knockout blow to any hopes of a quick recovery.
Passengers described scenes of chaos at St Pancras International, with departure boards showing delay after delay and harried staff struggling to provide answers.
Water bottles and weary travellers
As temperatures soared and tempers frayed, Eurostar teams handed out water to passengers stuck on delayed trains – some facing waits of several hours in stuffy carriages.
Station staff have been deployed to assist bewildered travellers, many of whom are trying to make crucial business meetings or long-awaited holiday connections.
One passenger tweeted: “Been stuck at Gare du Nord for three hours now. This is an absolute shambles.”
The copper crisis
Cable theft has become an increasingly common plague on Europe’s rail networks, with criminals targeting the valuable copper that can fetch high prices on the scrap metal market.
But this latest heist appears particularly brazen in its scale – 600 metres represents a significant operation that would have required vehicles and considerable time to execute.
Rail security experts warn that such thefts not only cause immediate disruption but can take days to fully repair, as replacement cables must be sourced and carefully installed.
No end in sight
With trains and crews still out of position from Tuesday’s incidents, and now major infrastructure damage to contend with, normal service seems a distant dream.
Eurostar has warned passengers to expect continued disruption, advising travellers to check before heading to stations and to allow extra time for journeys.
The operator hasn’t provided a timeline for when full service might resume, leaving thousands in limbo as the peak summer travel season gets underway.
For passengers caught in this perfect storm of delays, cancellations and chaos, the dream of swift, seamless travel between European capitals has become a nightmare of water bottles, departure board watching and seemingly endless waits.
As one weary traveller put it: “So much for the age of high-speed rail.
Two Eurostar trains at London St Pancras International
Photo by 0x010C, taken on 13 February 2016 at 11:38, used under the Creative Commons Attribution‑ShareAlike 4.0 International license
