Trains will continue operating from Paris to London, the company said. Eurostar, the sleek and speedy mode of travel that ties London, Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam and other cities, is a shadow of itself, crippled by the pandemic. Its ridership has all but vanished, and its finances are threatened. More than 90 percent of its employees have been furloughed, one of its union said.

Its woes reflect a struggle for survival playing out across the European train industry, as the pandemic continues to upend the business of transportation. Like Europe’s airlines, the railway sector is facing its worst crisis in modern history.

Ridership has slumped 70 to 90 percent amid lockdowns and social-distancing requirements, pushing the industry toward a staggering 22 billion euros in losses this year, around the same expected for European airlines, according to CER, a Brussels-based trade group representing passenger and freight train operators. Thousands of trains have been mothballed, and tens of thousands of workers are on government-subsidised furloughs.

“It’s a totally extraordinary situation,” said Libor Lochman, CER’s executive director. “There is no comparison for it, and it can and will lead to the bankruptcy of a number of companies, unless there is the political will to prevent it,” he said.

With more than nine billion passengers and 1.6 billion tons of freight carried on tracks stretching from Spain to Sweden, Europe’s trains are as vital as planes for whisking people and goods across the continent. But even after the pandemic, analysts say work-from-home practices, online socialising and the rise of internet shopping will have a lasting impact on rail travel of all types, leaving privately owned companies like Eurostar and state railways including DeutscheBahn in Germany and SNCF of France, Eurostar’s biggest shareholder, struggling to survive.

The European Union needs the industry to remain viable: It has made rail transport a centrepiece of the European Green Deal, a landmark environmental policy that aims to make Europe the first climate-neutral continent by 2050. The plan includes doubling high-speed rail and freight traffic, and expanding electric-powered trains and tracks to slash carbon emissions.

Eurostar, which employs 3,000 people and has its headquarters in London, has appealed to the British and French governments, citing its role as a low-carbon mode of travel, after the aviation industry and public rail received billions in financial support. “There is a risk that this iconic service could be left to fail,” Eurostar’s chief executive, Jacques Damas, wrote in an op-ed article.

Still, the pandemic is unlikely to wipe out Europe’s love affair with trains. People will probably gravitate back to their old mobility behaviour as the pandemic fades, said Maria Leenen, a founder of SCI Verkehr, a Hamburg-based rail industry consultancy. “But the trains will just be a little less full,” she said.

Liz Alderman is the Paris-based chief European business correspondent for NYT©2020