I suspect this story in one form or another will appear in a number of
local papers across the country.
http://www.huntspost.co.uk/content/hunts/news/story.aspx?brand=HPTOnline&category=News&tBrand=HertsCambsOnline&tCategory=newslatestHPT&itemid=WEED17%20Sep%202008%2011%3A07%3A06%3A227
quote
Businessman left stranded in Paris after tunnel fire
11:01 - 17 September 2008
AN Eaton Socon businessman, who was left "stranded" in Paris because
of the Channel Tunnel fire, has criticised Eurostar for leaving its
passengers to fend for themselves.

Peter Duddridge, of Duloe Road, was among the thousands of people
unable to travel on Eurostar last Thursday (September 11) after a fire
broke out in the north tunnel.

The 16-hour blaze started on a Folkestone to Calais train around seven
miles from France forcing some lorry drivers to smash windows to
escape the flames.

Mr Duddridge, 41, who was travelling on a train from Paris to Calais
that had to be turned back, described the situation as "a complete
nightmare".

He said: "About an hour after leaving Paris the train stopped and
passengers were told there was a technical fault.

"We were then told there was a problem in the tunnel and we would have
to go back to Paris. People were scared - there was one 70-year-old
woman who had been to a funeral and was travelling on Eurostar for the
first time."

Services through the tunnel were suspended, leaving 45,000 passengers
unable to travel on the Thursday and Friday.

Mr Duddridge, who works for Olympus, said he was told by Eurostar that
staff would get him a hotel and the firm would pick up the bill.

However, the father-of-three said back in Paris it was chaos.

"When I asked a member of staff to find me a hotel they laughed at me
and said there are thousands of people trying to get one and I would
have to sort one out myself.

"They literally threw everyone out on to the streets and said find
your own way.

"Understandably people were upset about being dumped in Paris. It was
panic and chaos. If it had been something on a larger scale, it would
have been complete meltdown."

He booked into a hotel in the hope that the tunnel would open the next
day. When it did not he tried to book a ferry or a plane home to be
with his wife on their wedding anniversary, but they were full. He
finally got a flight to Luton on Saturday with a one-way ticket
costing 129 Euros.

He said: "I'm a frequent traveller to Paris and had a company credit
card and an overnight bag so I was one of the lucky ones. For mothers
with children or the elderly it must have been horrible and they would
have been left hundreds of pounds out of pocket."

Mr Duddridge said he was left fuming after finding out Eurostar was
refusing to pay for the hotel.

"They are refunding the £79 for the return Eurostar journey but that
is the very least you would expect. I've spent nearly 600 Euros on
accommodation, food, flight and taxi fares and if I wasn't on business
that would have had to have come out of my own pocket. I'm just
appalled by the lack of customer service."

A spokesman for Eurostar said: "We are refunding return journey
tickets but we are not refunding the costs of hotels. We are asking
people to go through their travel insurance for any claims.

"It was clearly a difficult situation and I think our staff gave as
much information as possible to passengers."

A limited Eurostar service restarted on Monday and will operate until
September 30.

Passengers are advised to only make essential journeys.

unquote


If Eurostar is a direct competitor for the budget airlines for cross
channel traffic should it not have to play by the same EU compensation
rules that airlines have to play by? What did the airlines do when the
BA plane crashed at Heathrow?

Mwmbwls wrote:

> What did the airlines do when the BA plane crashed at Heathrow?

Not comparable. Comparable would be all planes being grounded as in .us
on 9-12. Was everyone in .us satisfactorily dealt with - was nobody in
the least inconvenienced by that disruption?

When the tunnel is the only available route for trains, and it is
blocked, trains have to stop. Planes can usually go somewhere else.

It's not that I'm unsympathetic. I certainly think E* didn't cover
themselves with glory in what they did, and maybe they didn't do all
that was reasonable, but when one reads something like:

> When I asked a member of staff to find me a hotel they laughed at me
> and said there are thousands of people trying to get one and I would
> have to sort one out myself.

... it does sound as if the passenger in question just expected there to
be thousands of vacant hotel rooms in Paris (no doubt within a short
walk of Paris Nord), and such things do not happen like that in the real
world.

-- 
http://gallery120232.fotopic.net/p13309772.html
(31 230 and 31 209 at London Paddington, 16 May 1981)

On 18 Sep, 10:06, Mwmbwls  wrote:
> I suspect this story in one form or another will appear in a number of
> local papers across the country.
> http://www.huntspost.co.uk/content/hunts/news/story.aspx?brand=HPTOnl...
> quote
> Businessman left stranded in Paris after tunnel fire
> 11:01 - 17 September 2008
> AN Eaton Socon businessman, who was left "stranded" in Paris because
> of the Channel Tunnel fire, has criticised Eurostar for leaving its
> passengers to fend for themselves.
>
> Peter Duddridge, of Duloe Road, was among the thousands of people
> unable to travel on Eurostar last Thursday (September 11) after a fire
> broke out in the north tunnel.
>
> The 16-hour blaze started on a Folkestone to Calais train around seven
> miles from France forcing some lorry drivers to smash windows to
> escape the flames.
>
> Mr Duddridge, 41, who was travelling on a train from Paris to Calais
> that had to be turned back, described the situation as "a complete
> nightmare".
>
> He said: "About an hour after leaving Paris the train stopped and
> passengers were told there was a technical fault.
>
> "We were then told there was a problem in the tunnel and we would have
> to go back to Paris. People were scared - there was one 70-year-old
> woman who had been to a funeral and was travelling on Eurostar for the
> first time."
>

She would've been more scared being in a tunnel under the Channel next
to a fire burning at 1,000 degrees. That *would* be a "complete
nightmare".

In message 
, at 
02:06:13 on Thu, 18 Sep 2008, Mwmbwls  
remarked:
>When it did not he tried to book a ferry or a plane home to be
>with his wife on their wedding anniversary, but they were full. He
>finally got a flight to Luton on Saturday with a one-way ticket
>costing 129 Euros.

Some lateral thinking can help in situations like this.

For example, getting a regular train to Brussels [1] or Amsterdam and a 
flight from there. Or even a pair of flights. For example, I've been on 
a Paris-Birmingham flight that was topped up with quite a few people 
diverted via Paris when their Amsterdam-Birmingham flight was cancelled. 
And I bumped into a colleague at Heathrow on the way to the USA who'd 
got there by Eurostar when his Brussels-USA flight was grounded for some 
reason.

[1] Or Eurostar could run a "special" themselves, they have the spare 
sets, even if it meant a reverse at Lille.
-- 
Roland Perry

In message <f7ujeuubwt7e$.1mg3qtx9vkd99$.dlg@40tude.net>, at 09:19:42 on 
Thu, 18 Sep 2008, Chris Tolley  remarked:
>> What did the airlines do when the BA plane crashed at Heathrow?
>
>Not comparable. Comparable would be all planes being grounded as in .us
>on 9-12. Was everyone in .us satisfactorily dealt with - was nobody in
>the least inconvenienced by that disruption?

I recall that Heathrow was at a standstill for about a week with regard 
to transatlantic flights. I had a conference in Canada that I was booked 
into as a speaker for about a week after and I didn't fly because things 
were too chaotic (no point going all that way for a one-day meeting when 
there's a significant risk of being late). [I gave the presentation by 
phone, which was almost impossible as you can't gauge the audience at 
all. I've only ever seen that tried on one other occasion before or 
since, and that didn't work very well either].

On 9-11 itself I flew from Stansted to Vienna, to another conference, 
which ended up being cancelled because keynote speakers couldn't get 
there from the USA. Flew back to London late on the 12th, by which time 
they hadn't yet put any special measures in place for European flights.
-- 
Roland Perry

On Thu, 18 Sep 2008 09:19:42 GMT, Chris Tolley wrote:
> Mwmbwls wrote:
[...]
> It's not that I'm unsympathetic. I certainly think E* didn't cover
> themselves with glory in what they did, and maybe they didn't do all
> that was reasonable, but when one reads something like:
>
>> When I asked a member of staff to find me a hotel they laughed at me
>> and said there are thousands of people trying to get one and I would
>> have to sort one out myself.
>
> ... it does sound as if the passenger in question just expected there to
> be thousands of vacant hotel rooms in Paris (no doubt within a short
> walk of Paris Nord), and such things do not happen like that in the real
> world.

Indeed, there may not be enough hotel rooms. Still, Eurostar should have
a contingency plan for when they can't run any trains and thousands of
passengers get stranded. Dutch railways have this (cooperation with
local authorities and the Red Cross - no hotels but still a place to
stay and get some sleep) and moreover: railways have an obligation
towards their passengers. They cannot say: you're on your own.

Regards,

          Rian

-- 
Rian van der Borgt, Leuven, Belgium.
e-mail: rvdborgt@evonet.be  www: http://www.evonet.be/~rvdborgt/

On Thu, 18 Sep 2008 02:06:13 -0700, Mwmbwls wrote:

> He said: "About an hour after leaving Paris the train stopped and
> passengers were told there was a technical fault.
> 
> "We were then told there was a problem in the tunnel and we would have
> to go back to Paris. People were scared - there was one 70-year-old
> woman who had been to a funeral and was travelling on Eurostar for the
> first time."

They could have gone to Calais Frethun, got people into town to catch the 
Ferries as foot passengers, then make their way from Dover to London by 
slow trains.

On 18 Sep, 12:28, Rian van der Borgt  wrote:
> On Thu, 18 Sep 2008 09:19:42 GMT, Chris Tolley wrote:
> > Mwmbwls wrote:
> [...]
> > It's not that I'm unsympathetic. I certainly think E* didn't cover
> > themselves with glory in what they did, and maybe they didn't do all
> > that was reasonable, but when one reads something like:
>
> >> When I asked a member of staff to find me a hotel they laughed at me
> >> and said there are thousands of people trying to get one and I would
> >> have to sort one out myself.
>
> > ... it does sound as if the passenger in question just expected there to
> > be thousands of vacant hotel rooms in Paris (no doubt within a short
> > walk of Paris Nord), and such things do not happen like that in the real
> > world.
>
> Indeed, there may not be enough hotel rooms. Still, Eurostar should have
> a contingency plan for when they can't run any trains and thousands of
> passengers get stranded.

Indeed, obvious thing would be train/bus to calais, ferry to dover,
train/bus to london. Sure it will be 3 hours longer, but better than
spending 3 hours trying to find a hotel room

Paul Weaver  wrote:
> Indeed, obvious thing would be train/bus to calais, ferry to dover,
> train/bus to london. Sure it will be 3 hours longer, but better than
> spending 3 hours trying to find a hotel room

And presumably the ferries could take a fair number of foot passengers if
they didn't have an associated vehicle with them (up to whatever the
lifeboat places are).  There's also all the other routes like
Newhaven/Dieppe, Folkestone/Boulogne, Dover/Zeebrugge, Portsmouth/Cherbourg
etc etc if the Calais ferries are full.

Theo

http://www.iht.com/bin/printfriendly.php?id=16284618
quote
Chunnel fire's cause still as dark as the tunnel itself
By Caroline Brothers International Herald Tribune
Thursday, September 18, 2008
CALAIS, France: What happened in the Channel Tunnel?
A week after fire transformed one of Europe's most important transport
arteries into a closed incinerator that destroyed a freight train and
all 27 trucks on board, French and British investigators and the
tunnel's operator have provided little insight into how it all
occurred.
Why, and where exactly, did the fire break out? What caused it? Did
truck drivers who smashed their way out of the train with a hammer
need to do so? And when will full service be restored, ending daily
disruption for thousands of passengers and tons of cargo?
Not even officials of Eurotunnel, the company that operates the
tunnel, have been given access to the actual accident site, 11
kilometers, or 7 miles, from the tunnel's exit on the French side,
while French police and transport investigators, observed by the
British police, carry out separate inquiries.
The French land transport accident bureau is taking the lead in the
investigation into the incident, said a spokesman for the British
Secretariat to the Channel Tunnel Safety Authority.
Although French officials have given no details about the cause of the
fire, Transportation Minister Dominique Bussereau said last week that
it "likely resembles something accidental," without elaborating.
Eurotunnel's chief executive, Jacques Gounon, said he had no reason to
believe the fire could have been "criminal."
John Keefe, a Eurotunnel spokesman, said that crews had been working
nonstop to remove soot and clean overhead electrical cables and rails
since the flames were doused last Friday, about 18 hours after fire
broke out on a shuttle train carrying heavy goods.
The train had 27 trucks, 29 drivers and 3 crew members aboard as it
traveled to France.
Some experts said they believed the fire ignited on a truck near the
front of the train, since some drivers escaping from the car where
they travel reported seeing flames, but this could not be
independently verified.
"It looks blackened," said Keefe, who has seen photographs of the
accident site, and was interviewed at Coquelles, the French village
nearest the tunnel exit. "The lorries are burned - the tires melt and
the bodies just sit there - and they look rusted because the paint has
burned off."
With temperatures inside the tunnel reaching as much as 1,000 degrees
Celsius (1,832 Fahrenheit) during the fire, Keefe said, portions of
the ceiling's concrete would have disintegrated, while other parts
would look completely usable. Heat, he said, gets distributed unevenly
around the circumference of the tunnel, with the hottest parts at the
top.
"In 1996, when they started to clear out the rubble, they found dozens
of fresh pineapples and unmelted camemberts - it gives you an idea of
the layering of temperature," he said, referring to a fire 12 years
ago that kept the tunnel partly closed for months.
A week after this accident, about 66 percent of the Eurostar passenger
trains were running through the tunnel, about half of the freight
trains and a quarter of shuttles transporting passenger cars. Trains
carrying goods in wagons were also being slotted in.
But until the untouched part of the north tunnel was reopened, all
traffic has to be routed through the south tunnel in alternating, six-
train convoys, Eurotunnel officials said.
Trains are departing at two-hour intervals and Eurostar passengers are
arriving after journeys of about two and half hours, compared with 2
hours and 13 minutes before.
Although the metal bodies of the trucks are intact inside the tunnel,
Keefe could not yet say whether its steel reinforcements had melted
away in the heat, nor whether its concrete and mortar lining had
turned to powder and fallen away.
Such assessments will have to wait until the investigators have
completed their inquiries and allow Eurotunnel officials back in. That
could take several weeks, officials said.
Meanwhile, ferry companies and airlines have moved to take up the
slack. Air France-KLM added 1,840 seats on flights from Paris and
London between last Friday and Tuesday, P&O ferries stepped up daily
round trips between Calais and Dover, and SeaFrance brought a
mothballed ferryboat back into operation.
Philippe Lassalle, director of port operations for SeaFrance, worked
through most of the night of the fire to re-establish the ferry
company's "foot passenger" service that the Channel tunnel trains had
all but killed.
School buses were commandeered from 100 kilometers away to bring
Eurostar passengers, including French design teams lugging enormous
trunks for London Fashion Week, from Calais station to the port.
Lassalle instructed one ferry, the Molière, to nearly double its daily
crossings and ordered the 28-year-old Renoir out of early retirement
for three round trips a day.
"On a normal day we will take 11,000 trucks. On Tuesday we took
16,000," Lassalle said in an interview. Car traffic has increased by
50 percent and freight by 20 to 40 percent, said Muriel Mironneau, a
spokeswoman for SeaFrance.
The U.K. Border Agency declined to discuss details Thursday after port
workers said that British immigration controls operating in the port
had created a bottleneck because there were too few workers to process
the thousands of extra passengers who flocked there.
"Staffing levels are flexible and respond to the needs of the
situation," a spokesman said.
On Wednesday afternoon, Paul Regnier, captain of the Renoir, stared
down from the bridge of the ferry, guiding it into dock as he exulted
in the ship's new relevance.
"When the tunnel began, we said that if we have to share, there won't
be enough work for the tunnel and the ferry, and in the long run we
would not be viable," he said.
"But the tunnel has acted as a sort of funnel and finally everyone
came here, from Newhaven, Dunkirk, Ramsgate, Ostend - the clients all
came through Calais-Dover. The tunnel has worked to pull them in."
Alistair Lindsay, a truck driver waiting to board the Molière , said
he just missed being on the train that burned because he was running
late. He rerouted via Rotterdam when he heard of the 58-kilometer
traffic jams around Dover resulting from the fire.
"It's my worst nightmare, getting trapped," he said of the tunnel
fire. "It's the second time it's happened - last time they said it
would never happen again and now it has."
Mathe Elemer-Lorant of Romania had three tractors on the back of his
semi-trailer for his first-ever sea crossing to England. Like many
truckers, including some of the 11 nationalities among the 29 drivers
who escaped from the fire, he spoke neither English nor French.
"On the shuttle they tell us what to do in French and English, but I
don't understand a word," he said through an interpreter.
Most drivers were aware of the hoods stowed in the passenger area of
the shuttle train, to be used to protect against gases. Keefe, the
Eurotunnel spokesman, said that pictogram safety instructions are
laminated to the car's tabletops, while all crews undergo frequent and
rigorous safety training.
"Where did the fire start and how - that will be a crucial part of the
investigation," said Keefe, discounting unverified reports in the news
media that the shuttle had explosive chemicals on board.
Some cargo is dangerous, he asserted. Eurotunnel transports tiny
portions of radioactive isotopes for treating cancer, toxins for
making medicines and explosives for flares for rescuing mariners at
sea, he said.
"We don't carry Semtex or nuclear waste - all those rumors can be
pushed out the window," he said, noting that trucks by nature have
flammable loads - fuel, plastic, "all sorts of things that can go up
in flames" - with the most noxious thing being burning rubber from
tires.
Keefe said trucks are thoroughly inspected at both ends of the tunnel.
He also strongly defended safety measures.
Any irregularity triggers alarms on screens watched by officials at
both ends of the tunnel. The train is then automatically halted in
alignment with an escape exit and fresh air is rushed in to allow
passengers to escape into the cross tunnel without inhaling smoke.
Carriers are sent into the adjoining service tunnel to bring
passengers out.
Truckers who smashed the window to escape risked letting in toxic
fumes, Keefe said. Six were taken to the hospital after the fire last
week, suffering from smoke inhalation.
Still, it is not safety fears that have stopped Regnier, the Renoir's
captain, from using the tunnel in its 14-year existence.
"There is no such thing as zero risk," he said, but added, referring
to the tunnel, "Why should I travel with the competitor?"
unquote

On Thu, 18 Sep 2008 02:06:13 -0700 (PDT), Mwmbwls
 wrote:

snip
>
>If Eurostar is a direct competitor for the budget airlines for cross
>channel traffic should it not have to play by the same EU compensation
>rules that airlines have to play by? What did the airlines do when the
>BA plane crashed at Heathrow?

Eurostar is legally bound by the conditions of the CIV, which define
liability and compensation when things go wrong.

This was discussed in the other Eurostar thread, a few days ago.

New Civil Engineer magazine brings the story up to date.

http://www.nce.co.uk/news/2008/10/fire_stripped_off_channel_tunnel_lining.html;jsessionid=F5791E838D045EC80D132718F7B95657
quote
Fire stripped off Channel Tunnel lining
Published: 09 October 2008 10:05
Author: Seán Flynn
Large chunks of the fire damaged concrete lining in the Channel Tunnel
have fallen off, the lead French investigator into the blaze on 11
September said this week.
"I'm no expert but there was significant damage to the concrete along
the length of the tunnel where the train was standing.Quite a lot of
concrete has fallen on the tunnel floor," said Bureau d'Enquêtes sur
les Accidents de Transport Terrestre (BEA-TT) lead investigator
Étienne Rambach.
He is leading the joint investigation between France's BEA-TT and the
UK's Railway Accident Investigation Branch (RAIB).
But fire engineers said the extent of the damage was still unclear.
"It doesn't take a genius to realise that there would be significant
spalling after a fire of that magnitude burning for 16 hours but the
real question at this stage is how much concrete has spalled
underneath the steel reinforcement," said Halcrow director of fire
safety Fathi Tarada.
Ordinarily, there would be a layer of reinforcement perhaps 50mm to
70mm under the surface of the concrete tunnel lining.
Tarada said spalled concrete behind the reinforcement would be
difficult to replace.
"Rebar would have to be removed to replace the spalled concrete behind
it and this steel would then have to be replaced and re-anchored," he
said.
Imperial College research fellow Professor Gabriel Khoury – a leading
expert on concrete and tunnel safety said reinstatement would be
tricky if the reinforcement had to be removed first.
"When you reinstate, you've got to make sure the tunnel is
structurally safe," he said.
Rambach said the BEA-TT's technical investigation was almost complete
but that a judicial investigation being carried out by investigators
from the town of Boulogne-sur-Mer was ongoing.
Rambach said that it was still difficult to assess the extent of
damage to rolling stock in the tunnel.
BEA-TT gave the tunnel operators the green light to start moving
sections of the 800m long fire damaged train from the tunnel last
Wednesday. Since then Eurotunnel has moved around half of train from
the tunnel.
The locomotive, the club car in which the HGV drivers travel and some
of the wagons at the front of the train were functioning well enough
to allow them to the towed out of the tunnel.
But Rambach and Eurotunnel said decisions on how to remove the
remaining wagons would be taken on a case-by-case basis.
A Eurotunnel spokesman told NCE that despite having increased access
to the fire damaged tunnel section since the removal some of the
train, the company had still been unable to carry out its own formal
investigation of the accident site.
unquote

"Mwmbwls"  wrote in message 
news:f8318289-7095-4e6f-89e6-8a9086834d56@e2g2000hsh.googlegroups.com...
New Civil Engineer magazine brings the story up to date.

http://www.nce.co.uk/news/2008/10/fire_stripped_off_channel_tunnel_lining.html;jsessionid=F5791E838D045EC80D132718F7B95657
quote
Fire stripped off Channel Tunnel lining
Published: 09 October 2008 10:05
Author: Seán Flynn
Large chunks of the fire damaged concrete lining in the Channel Tunnel
have fallen off, the lead French investigator into the blaze on 11
September said this week.
"I'm no expert but there was significant damage to the concrete along
the length of the tunnel where the train was standing.Quite a lot of
concrete has fallen on the tunnel floor," said Bureau d'Enquêtes sur
les Accidents de Transport Terrestre (BEA-TT) lead investigator
Étienne Rambach.
He is leading the joint investigation between France's BEA-TT and the
UK's Railway Accident Investigation Branch (RAIB).
But fire engineers said the extent of the damage was still unclear.
"It doesn't take a genius to realise that there would be significant
spalling after a fire of that magnitude burning for 16 hours but the
real question at this stage is how much concrete has spalled
underneath the steel reinforcement," said Halcrow director of fire
safety Fathi Tarada.
Ordinarily, there would be a layer of reinforcement perhaps 50mm to
70mm under the surface of the concrete tunnel lining.
Tarada said spalled concrete behind the reinforcement would be
difficult to replace.
"Rebar would have to be removed to replace the spalled concrete behind
it and this steel would then have to be replaced and re-anchored," he
said.
Imperial College research fellow Professor Gabriel Khoury – a leading
expert on concrete and tunnel safety said reinstatement would be
tricky if the reinforcement had to be removed first.
"When you reinstate, you've got to make sure the tunnel is
structurally safe," he said.
Rambach said the BEA-TT's technical investigation was almost complete
but that a judicial investigation being carried out by investigators
from the town of Boulogne-sur-Mer was ongoing.
Rambach said that it was still difficult to assess the extent of
damage to rolling stock in the tunnel.
BEA-TT gave the tunnel operators the green light to start moving
sections of the 800m long fire damaged train from the tunnel last
Wednesday. Since then Eurotunnel has moved around half of train from
the tunnel.
The locomotive, the club car in which the HGV drivers travel and some
of the wagons at the front of the train were functioning well enough
to allow them to the towed out of the tunnel.
But Rambach and Eurotunnel said decisions on how to remove the
remaining wagons would be taken on a case-by-case basis.
A Eurotunnel spokesman told NCE that despite having increased access
to the fire damaged tunnel section since the removal some of the
train, the company had still been unable to carry out its own formal
investigation of the accident site.
unquote

As of yesterday afternoon, two carrier wagons, the rear loader, and the rear 
locomotive remained- the others had all been removed on their own running 
gear. It has been a slow process removing stock, as each vehicle has to have 
the spalled concrete cleared from around and on top of it before the rolling 
stock technicians can be sure of the condition of the running gear.
Brian

In message <gcpp0s$p4o$1$8302bc10@news.demon.co.uk>, at 09:44:17 on Sat, 
11 Oct 2008, BH Williams  remarked:
>"I'm no expert
...
>" said Bureau d'Enquêtes sur les Accidents de Transport Terrestre 
>(BEA-TT) lead investigator Étienne Rambach.

Maybe we need an opinion from someone who *is* an expert ;-)
-- 
Roland Perry

"Roland Perry"  wrote in message 
news:OHwCUvG4cH8IFA6A@perry.co.uk...
> In message <gcpp0s$p4o$1$8302bc10@news.demon.co.uk>, at 09:44:17 on Sat, 
> 11 Oct 2008, BH Williams  remarked:
>>"I'm no expert
> ...
>>" said Bureau d'Enquêtes sur les Accidents de Transport Terrestre (BEA-TT) 
>>lead investigator Étienne Rambach.
>
> Maybe we need an opinion from someone who *is* an expert ;-)
> -- 
> Roland Perry
Can I point out here that it's not me saying 'I'm no expert'....-not that I 
am...
Brian

In message <gcq16f$4p2$1$8302bc10@news.demon.co.uk>, at 12:03:48 on Sat, 
11 Oct 2008, BH Williams  remarked:
>> In message <gcpp0s$p4o$1$8302bc10@news.demon.co.uk>, at 09:44:17 on Sat,
>> 11 Oct 2008, BH Williams  remarked:
>>>"I'm no expert
>> ...
>>>" said Bureau d'Enquêtes sur les Accidents de Transport Terrestre (BEA-TT)
>>>lead investigator Étienne Rambach.
>>
>> Maybe we need an opinion from someone who *is* an expert ;-)
>> --
>> Roland Perry
>Can I point out here that it's not me saying 'I'm no expert'....-not that I
>am...
>Brian

I didn't think you'd changed your name to Étienne Rambach :)
-- 
Roland Perry

"Roland Perry"  wrote in message 
news:9LBOHTM8AJ8IFAdV@perry.co.uk...
> In message <gcq16f$4p2$1$8302bc10@news.demon.co.uk>, at 12:03:48 on Sat, 
> 11 Oct 2008, BH Williams  remarked:
>>> In message <gcpp0s$p4o$1$8302bc10@news.demon.co.uk>, at 09:44:17 on Sat,
>>> 11 Oct 2008, BH Williams  remarked:
>>>>"I'm no expert
>>> ...
>>>>" said Bureau d'Enquêtes sur les Accidents de Transport Terrestre 
>>>>(BEA-TT)
>>>>lead investigator Étienne Rambach.
>>>
>>> Maybe we need an opinion from someone who *is* an expert ;-)
>>> --
>>> Roland Perry
>>Can I point out here that it's not me saying 'I'm no expert'....-not that 
>>I
>>am...
>>Brian
>
> I didn't think you'd changed your name to Étienne Rambach :)
> -- 
> Roland Perry


It's just the way it showed on my reader with the editing- mind 
you-'Rambach' would be quite a good 'nom-de-clavier' for a Welshman...
Judging by the progress of the clearance, I would imagine that the civils 
would be able to give an expert assessment of the amount of work required to 
repair the tunnel structure within a week or so.
Brian