Sarkozy orders Chunnel restart

Sarkozy orders Chunnel restart

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Published on December 21st, 2009, 9:34 am
Rift: News

The other day, the Eurostar trains running through the Channel Tunnel to London suffered a breakdown, stranding thousands of passengers in the tunnel. The officials in charge of the train system there suspended traffic between London and the mainland pending determination of what went wrong and how to prevent a repeat.

Today, French President Sarkozy has ordered the system to re-start by tomorrow. Personally, I think it's something of a mistake to push technical issues faster than they need to go. It assumes that the engineers working on the problem aren't really working hard on solving the problem, it seems to me -- pushing them faster than they are already working will very likely lead to mistakes. And in this place, you really do NOT want mistakes.

I realize that the Chunnel is a major line of transport for Europe. But there ARE alternatives that worked for a very log time and can take up at least part of the load. I think they need to let the engineers determine the re-opening schedule, not a politician.

My understanding of the problem is it isn't a technical issue but a flaw in design that doesn't allow the vehicle to deal with operation in snow.

I'm not sure why they can't simply replace the parts, and begin operation, and develop a retro-fit for future problems down the road....

Or outlaw snow.

Prolly won't be a problem if they just let the CO2 levels keep rising. There you go -- problem solved. :evil:

My first reaction was "Snow? In the tunnel?" but apparently the problem is with snow buildup on the trains that melts in the tunnel and penetrates electronics. That I can understand. They had snow shields but they're not up to the unprecedented (in the last 15 years) cold snap.

Cue the climate change deniers. "Ha - an unprecedented cold snap in France, see, told you it was all a hoax"

A Person wrote:Cue the climate change deniers. "Ha - an unprecedented cold snap in France, see, told you it was all a hoax"

Cue the Day After Tomorrow.... The earth is trying to fix itself by making everything white.

Or... cue Fred Phelps.... "God hates France"

Liv wrote:Or... cue Fred Phelps.... "God hates France"

God hates people entering orifices