• This year, the TGV is celebrating its fortieth anniversary, and events are scheduled for Friday in several stations in France.

  • For the occasion,

    20 Minutes

     requested

    its readers so that they can tell the unusual anecdotes they experienced on board the famous train.

  • ULM on the rails, trip with a rugby team… There are many memories.

Taking the TGV isn't just about sitting down and waiting to get to your destination.

Because wagons can be the scene of surprising events.

While the TGV is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year,

20 Minutes

got on board (car 4, place 63, just after the bar car) and asked its readers to tell their most unusual memories of this train.

A boon for some, like Max, to make fun of the eternal delays of the SNCF.

Its most significant story?

“My TGV arrived on time, but it's been a long time, twenty-five years I believe.

"Philippe adds a layer:" One day, the TGV arrived on time!

".

So much for the irony.

But others have experienced somewhat more remarkable events.

"The whole car was doing the Javanese"

Marie-Flora remembers one in particular. Or rather a request made at the microphone: "(There was a) little message asking us if a TGV driver or a retired driver, who knows the line, was on the train," she says. . For lack of a driver, it was ultimately "a mechanic from the SNCF who drove us to our destination". "Whiskylegrizzly" has a memory of a memorable party, during a "departure for skiing with sixty friends in 2002". No reading in silence, but a "TGV aperitif cigarette (smoking period) with the controller, the whole car played the Javanese with us." "

Sitting in a TGV also means having some fears.

For oneself, or for others.

This is what happened to Nelly, stranded between Mulhouse and Paris: “3 hour stop in search of a baby, until the suitcases were opened.

The panic ended when the staff realized that "the baby did not exist."

Indeed, "it was a report of an imbalance".

He reads a novel, the author is his neighbor

The TGV also means meeting new faces, sometimes better known than others. What Matthieu experienced: “I spent several hours on the TGV next to Jane Birkin. "But he was not very reckless:" I did not dare to discuss with her. I just lent her my pen to sign an autograph for a neighbor! Matthew will at least have made one happy. Fans of French song (or tennis) will be jealous of Marie: "I met Yannick Noah (smiley hearts in the eyes)". And for Stéphane, it is rather the young generation: “I took a picture with Nacca from the Marseillais… I thought it was DJ Snake! ".

Same surprise effect for Florent. In 2008, he took places with his cousin to go see a rugby match, “France-I don't know who. "By booking the TGV tickets," I don't know what got into me, I looked first and the prices were affordable, "he says. And on D-day, “arrived at Massy, ​​a band of tall, muscular fellows invaded the wagon. The French rugby team. So then not to sympathize? “I found myself in places at 4, hitting the box with Chabal, Parra and Lièvremont. The best ride of my life. "

Philippe's story is undoubtedly more poetic.

While devouring a novel on the platform of the Avignon station, he realizes that he was in the presence… of its author: “I am reading

Le Montespan

, by Jean Teulé.

He's sitting there waiting, and I'm going to see him.

He had a broad smile.

"The next chapter was played on board:" Second extraordinary coincidence, I go up and he sits next to me.

Great to have been able to travel with the author of the book I was reading ”.

"The TGV was stationary and was carrying a transfer prisoner"

And then there are the memories of galleys, more or less absurd. During a Paris - Saint-Raphaël, Véronique remains stranded for 4 hours in Avignon: “The train stopped to allow a convoy carrying vehicles to pass. When the latter passed us, the trunk of a car opened and touched the catenary. "Explosive consequence:" It caused a fire and cut the power. And that's not all. “The TGV was carrying a transfer prisoner, and the gendarmes went with him, handcuffed, to the platform, like all travelers, because there was no air conditioning. "

For Carlos, finally, the danger came from everywhere.

"An ultralight took the rails for an airstrip," he begins.

And as if that were not enough, "a car decided to cross a barrier by force".

A good excuse to reuse when arriving late Monday for work.

Society

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Society

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  • TGV

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  • Testimony

  • Society

  • SNCF

  • Birthday