Brussels (AFP)
The Thalys rail company announced its decision to close sales on all its lines Thursday and Friday and asked its users to postpone their trip because of problems caused by the infrastructure heat wave.
"Extremely difficult weather conditions are causing disruption of the network," a company spokeswoman told AFP. The sales were closed for "the days of Thursday and Friday for the entire network" which covers Belgium, France, the Netherlands and Germany, she said.
"Due to severe disruption due to extreme weather conditions, we are forced to close sales on all our lines and we advise our travelers to postpone their trip," said the company, apologizing for its twitter account and its website.
The Belgian rail network was put to the test since Wednesday. A Thalys train linking Amsterdam to Paris was thus blocked at Mechelen, between Antwerp and Brussels. Its 350 passengers were evacuated and arrangements were made to allow them to return to Brussels.
Another train from Marne-le-Vallée (Paris region) to Amsterdam was also blocked, and passengers were evacuated to the nearest station to reach Brussels.
"The network (Belgian) is doing pretty well against extreme temperatures," said Arnaud Reymann, spokesperson for the Infrabel network manager. "For two days, what is suffering the most is the catenary, which expands with heat, and tends to hang," he said.
On the tracks, the temperatures can be 10 to 15 ° C higher than the ambient air with metal, stone and reverberation. Another problem is that fires on embankment slopes can be triggered by sparks when trains pass.
© 2019 AFP