(8 Jan 2010)
1. Exterior of Gare du Nord train station
2. Various of queuing Eurostar passengers
3. Various of Eurostar trains on tracks
4. Wide of waiting area
5. Set up of spokesman for Eurostar in Paris, Lionel Benbassat
6. SOUNDBITE: (French) Lionel Benbassat, spokesperson for the Eurostar in Paris:
"There is about fifty percent of the traffic which is still running. We have cancelled the first trains in the morning and the last trains in the evening. We will apply the same measures of security over the entire week-end. We don''t have a clear train timetable for this week-end, but it is sure that the service will be reduced."
7. Passengers at Eurostar terminal
8. Close-up of Eurostar sign
9. Various of Eurostar officials applying updated reservation stickers to tickets
10. Wide of station floor
11. Close-up of Eurostar information board
12. Wide of Eurostar platform
STORYLINE:
Eurostar decided to cut half its trains from Paris to London on Friday because of bad weather conditions in the United Kingdom.
On Thursday, a Eurostar train from Brussels to London was stuck for two hours in the Channel Tunnel because of a technical problem.
The company said it was investigating the cause of the fault, which followed a series of breakdowns last month blamed on dry, powdery snow getting into the trains'' engines.
The train was towed to a station in southern England, where passengers were transferred to another train that arrived about three hours late to London''s St. Pancras station, a company spokesman said.
The breakdown caused delays on Thursday across Eurostar''s network, the only rail link between Britain and the European continent through the 32-mile (50-kilometre) long Chunnel Tunnel.
A statement on the company''s Web site said it would run a restricted service over the next few days because of bad weather across northern Europe.
Eurostar urged people whose travel was not essential to cancel or postpone their trips.
Britain is experiencing its longest cold snap since 1981, and forecasters say the Arctic weather system will remain through next week.
The country experienced the coldest night of an icy winter on Thursday, with temperatures falling to minus 22.3 degrees Celsius (minus 8.1 Fahrenheit) in the Scottish Highlands village of Altnaharra.
The village already holds the record for the coldest temperature ever recorded in Britain, reaching minus 27.2 Celsius (minus 17 Fahrenheit) in 1995.
Road, rail and air travellers faced continuing delays on Friday, and thousands of schools were shut.
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