Over the past year, despite the fact that trains broke down in December leaving over a thousand travellers stranded, Eurostar reported a rise in ticket sales and passenger numbers.

For 2009, Eurostar sales hit 675.5 Million Pounds, which is a rise of 1.7% as compared to sales recorded for the year 2008.

Also, the service transported 1.2% more travellers, with the total traffic number rising to 9.2 million passengers.

On Monday, Eurostar confessed that it is expected to send out compensations of at least 10 Million Pounds to travellers who had been affected by the travel chaos that happened right before Christmas.

When numerous Eurostar trains broke down on the weekend of 18 to 20 December, nearly 2,000 passengers were stuck in the Channel Tunnel, and the maintenance work and next day's suspension of services affected thousands more.

“It seems to be a strange combination of factors. It was the amount of snow, which was higher than we experienced before, it was lighter than normal, fluffier, and the temperature inside the tunnel and the humidity was higher than normal", said Nick Mercer, the commercial director of Eurostar.