Bordeaux (AFP)
Several hundred SNCF travelers were on Monday morning by coach to Bordeaux to catch up with a TGV for Paris, after a "chain of incidents" that disrupted the rail network in the Landes and caused a night of galley to more than a thousand travelers.
"At present, we have mobilized buses to take care of people immobilized in Hendaye and to be able to finish their transport to the Paris station", indicated Jérôme Attou, SNCF crisis director at a press conference at the end. morning at Bordeaux station.
These travelers were the last passengers of three trains whose occupants experienced a night of galley, after an electrical incident in the Dax sector.
A double train of the TGV 8538 carrying a thousand passengers who left Hendaye to arrive in Paris on Sunday at 4:20 p.m., were stranded all night, first in Morcenx then Ychoux, 50 km away.
- More than 200 agents mobilized -
After a transshipment in the middle of the track and in the middle of the night, these travelers were able to leave for Paris where they arrived at the end of the morning.
Two other trains, carrying 445 passengers, including the 8546 scheduled for departure from Hendaye at 5:55 p.m. for an arrival at Paris-Montparnasse at 10 p.m., had turned back towards Hendaye where they ended their night, and from where the coaches left for Bordeaux at the end of the morning.
The incident, which mobilized more than 200 agents with reinforcements from Midi-Pyrénées, occurred in the Dax sector.
"This is an exceptional event which created a chain of incidents which ended, at one point, not immediately, in the interruption of traffic", indicated in Bordeaux, Jean-Luc Gary, territorial director SNCF Nouvelle Aquitaine network.
"On almost the whole of South Aquitaine, events have recurred and are undoubtedly linked to the same cause. What we do not know at this time is who did what, who created what?" , he added.
A defective catenary element was identified in Orthez (Pyrénées-Atlantiques), he said. It "damaged the catenary in several places".
"Is it a defective pentograph which tore off the catenary? A defective element of the catenary which hung and hit the pantograph and can then damage the catenary in several places?", He wondered again.
"The area is vast. We are in the process of surveying all trains passed on these sections," he continued.
An internal investigation is underway but "first we are working to restore and put the whole system back into service," according to Gary.
Train traffic should resume Tuesday, according to SNCF.
On RMC, the Minister for Transport Jean-Baptiste Djebbari indicated Monday morning that "the tracks could reopen Tuesday morning but the works are quite substantial, 60 km of tracks were damaged, in particular at the level of the catenaries".
On social networks, travelers had let their anger explode overnight after this last holiday weekend, fearing contamination by Covid-19.
"We are on the train leaving Biarritz at 12:23 and it is 3:00 am. 1,100 passengers on board: could we have masks so as not to add to the records of this nightmarish journey that of the largest cluster? # Tgv8538 # jesuis8538 ", a passenger had said during the night.
The "staff did not know what to say, they were present but they felt helpless," said an AFP journalist who was in one of the trains.
According to the national direction of the SNCF, these passengers were the subject of a "support on the spot. We proceeded to deliveries of masks, distributed blankets, bottles of water, breakfasts"
She also let it be known that "the compensation for passengers on the three trains amounts to 300% and we also reimburse all ancillary costs, hotels and taxis".
lth-ff-pbl-as / tes
© 2020 AFP