If it's an August weekend, there must be a TGV on fire ...

[whole diary]

[stuving]

This year SNCF^▸ (Societe Nationale des Chemins de fer Francais - French National Railways) say they are back to "normal", and even more busy than that. So, as it's chassé-croisé weekend, what's broken down? A Thalys, this time. From The Brussels Times:

Another Thalys train breakdown traps passengers overnight
Saturday, 30 July 2022 By Dylan Carter

Despite a 10% reduction in capacity following the breakdown of two Thalys trains in a week during the recent July heatwave, passengers have once again found themselves stuck on high-speed trains returning from France.

Following a collision with an animal on the tracks near Tournai, which caused a technical issue with the train’s engine, around 800 people were allowed to sleep overnight on nearby train carriages provided by Thalys.

During the evening, the stricken train was evacuated and the passengers were given the choice of walking to a hotel, paying for a taxi to Brussels, or staying in makeshift accommodation provided by the company.

According to Belgian broadcaster RTBF, travellers who opted to receive hotel vouchers were disappointed to find that the hotel had no more rooms available, and were forced to make their own way to the Gare du Midi in Brussels. The broken-down train is scheduled to depart again sometime this morning.

Passengers stuck in the train’s carriages were cut off from electricity and air conditioning due to damage to the train’s engine*. According to a spokesperson for the train operator, water was provided to the stranded travellers and the doors of the train were opened.

The breakdown has caused a whole chain of delays across the Thalys network, however the operator assures that passengers will be compensated for their time and any inconvenience caused.
Related News

Thalys is bracing for a summer of disruptions to its planned services. Following the breakdown of the two trains in July, which Thalys initially labelled a “coincidence”, the train operator will now conduct additional safety checks on some of its trains, leading to a series of cancellations.

“Due to operating incidents that occurred at the end of July, two trains had to undergo in-depth repairs and checks in our two maintenance workshops in Paris in Brussels,” Thalys explained on its website. “As a result, Thalys will not be able to use its entire fleet for the next few weeks.”

Customers are able to postpone their trip free of charge or receive a refund for the cancelled journeys up to one year after the original booking.

* meaning the power car failed, I presume

So, enormously disruptive animals there too. And then there's those two trains breaking down and losing cooling in a heatwave that makes that an instant emergency. And yes, there was a fire as well, perhaps inevitably this year. It closed the LGV^▸ (Large Goods Vehicle) Lyon-Marseille for a few hours, and is reported to have started from an aire de repos on the A7 near Valence.

[stuving]

And again today - the relatively unusual event of a person struck by a TGV^▸ (Train a Grande Vitesse) on a high-speed line (Paris-Bordeaux). Described as 1 km north of Gare de Vendome Villiers sur Loir, which is not the one in Vendôme (it's 4 km away). The train stopped 1 km past the station, with 2-3 hour delays once the line reopened. I guess the point about it being today is there are more trains and passengers than usual.

[stuving]

Today services from the Gare Paris Est were hit for an unusual reason - sabotage. Overnight someone opened some cable ducts and cabinets, poured petrol on the cables, and lit it. The result was the destruction (as working cables) of 600 cables in 48 conduit channels. This was near a major signalling centre at Vaires-sur-Marne, controlling the line out of Paris Est, so all services are cancelled, except Transilien via Émerainville and a few TGVs^▸ (Train a Grande Vitesse) switched to Paris Nord. Maybe tomorrow, maybe not is the current estimate for resumption.

The news media (and SNCF^▸ (Societe Nationale des Chemins de fer Francais - French National Railways) and the government) have studiously avoided so far suggesting it might be linked to the current round of protest/agitation about pensions. But that must be a possibility, bearing in mind that it might not even be the fringe of the political groups, more the hangers-on who are always looking to have a bit of a riot or smash things.

There was another railway news item today that has got pushed to the side, as if there is a quota for railway news.That was a TER on the line up the valley to Moutiers that hit, and cut in half, a coach at a level crossing (at Cevins). The bus was empty, and its driver the only serious casualty, but the train was ripped open and a few passengers were injured. The coach driver may be able to explain why he was apparently stuck on the crossing.

[stuving]

Maybe sabotage isn't as rare as I thought. There were two similar events in 2021: in June near Valence and in October in four places at once, all on LGVs^▸ (Large Goods Vehicle). I don't think any culprit has ever been identified.

And one correction to the earlier report: it's now clear it was 48 cables, so must be 600 wires or circuits, that were involved. So repair of most of that overnight and during tomorrow is plausible.

[stuving]

SNCF^▸ (Societe Nationale des Chemins de fer Francais - French National Railways) did, indeed, get around half their services running on most lines from yesterday morning, and most of the rest by the afternoon. That looks impressive, since those trains were running while a lot of the wires were being worked on.

Assuming these installations are reasonably modern, wire wires can't be going very far - anything beyond the (very large) track network at Vaires would go by fibre, or at least trunk interconnection. So presumably it's a matter of how many tracks through Vaires can be got working. That still implies a lot of flexibility, to run through an area with half its signalling being worked on.

One odd point in the reporting is that one line affected was that to La Ferté-Milon, and that's the last non-electrified line in the Ile-de-France. The wording suggests that was a reason it was running, so I guess some (at least) of the cables controlled the OLE^▸ (Overhead Line Equipment, more often "OHLE") power. Maybe that makes it easier.

[stuving]

It's holiday season already, isn't it, even if not yet the peak months of July and August. So guess what happens. Yesterday there was an interruption to services out of Gare Montparnasse (local as well as main line). Its cause is a bit mysterious, since there are reports of explosions at the site (Saint-Arnoult), but SNCF^▸ (Societe Nationale des Chemins de fer Francais - French National Railways) say a bird hit a train and then the caténaire. That train was not much delayed, they say, but services were stopped for at least a couple of hours and delayed for most of the evening.

There were also issues at gare du Nord: a train/supply failure in the station throat yesterday, and a broken caténaire on Thursday. So, not too serious as these things go - I guess they are just limbering up for high summer!

[stuving]

You may have worked out this is chassé-croisé weekend, so there must have been a massive disruption of the trains. This year it was not (or not yet!) due to the heat itself, but the violent storms that the heat has set off. A lightning strike near Paris took out the signals on the LGV^▸ (Large Goods Vehicle) from Paris-Montparnasse (again!) yesterday afternoon, and while it was declared fixed by 19:30 there was by then a big backlog.

SNCF^▸ (Societe Nationale des Chemins de fer Francais - French National Railways) say that no trains were cancelled as a result, but they were leaving an hour or two late and where staff ran out of hours some were far later than that arriving. Still, not so bad for one of these panne géante things. And if your trip is the start of a three or four week holiday, a few hours delay will soon be forgotten.

[stuving]

If that thunderstorm didn't count, then this is this year's pagaille à la gare Montparnasse - and it's a bit late for the holiday season, or even its heatwave extension. So yes, once again it was the line out of Paris Montparnasse that was affected, with no electricity for all of Sunday afternoon. A break in a cable at the entrance of a tunnel at Massy was blamed,  though it's not clear what sort of cable or tunnel was meant.

Massy is a kind of Old Oak Common about 12 kn from Montparnasse, and 10 km further down the line (Marcoussis) there was a train stuck in a tunnel for five hours. For some reason this was not only evacuated (on foot) but a rescue train was needed for the passengers. That may be a consequent or separate train failure, but in any case it was a mess inside due to five hours enforced occupation by the passengers (who were somewhere else by then).

Services recovered during Sunday night, though some were very late arriving. Monday morning services were predicted to be all OK, but in fact significant delays have been reported. This sort of thing has now happened so often that "SNAFU^▸ (Situation Normal: All Fouled Up (I have toned down the F word))" describes it exactly. Do the French use a literal translation of that? No, apparently it's still Snafu.

[stuving]

And if it's a freezing cold January evening? An Intercités (so locomotive-hauled) train left Paris-Bercy for Clermont-Ferrand at 18:57 last night, due to arrive 22:31. But the loco broke down and its back-up had to come from Paris. So it was stuck with 700 passengers and no power - no heat or light - until the local fire & rescue and Red Cross turned up with emergency supplies of survival blankets and food.

Which isn't good, obviously. But why it was rated as a life-threatening incident is less clear. Help arrived after 2.5 hours, and the internal temperature never got below about 10^o - so were there really passenger without seasonable outer clothing? The rescue dragged the train back to a station (Montargis) before swapping locos, which took time, so they arrived at 6:20. I assume these old Corail carriages at least have toilets that work without electricity!

From SNCF^▸ (Societe Nationale des Chemins de fer Francais - French National Railways)'s viewpoint, they will shortly get some new trains for these services (TGVs^▸ (Train a Grande Vitesse) adapted to not be TGVs). The current materiel is thus on a make do and mend programme until withdrawal, and of course failures get more frequent.

[stuving]

This year's first attempt (no doubt more serious ones will happen during the Olympics) is unusual.

A TGV^▸ (Train a Grande Vitesse) linking Paris to Nantes on Thursday had to be stopped at Sablé-sur-Sarthe (Sarthe) in the evening, because of a 'strong smell'. The firefighters were mobilized and the 1,200 passengers were evacuated.

The 1,200 travellers on a Paris-Nantes Ouigo train were evacuated on Thursday evening at Sablé-sur-Sarthe (Sarthe), due to a "strong and irritating" odour from the toilet, AFP has learned from SNCF^▸ (Societe Nationale des Chemins de fer Francais - French National Railways) and the prefecture.

While some made their own way onward (it was still before 9 pm) the rest were stuck for 6 hours until a replacement train arrived after 2 am. Nothing harmful was identified, so it's hard to know serious it was.

[Chris from Nailsea]

Compare, in the UK^▸ (United Kingdom), Voyagers.  Just live with it!