It's a Saturday of departures or returns from holidays which, for some travelers, will be upset.
Significant delays in train traffic are recorded in the south of the country, due to a fire near the tracks between Lapalud (Vaucluse) and Allan (Drôme), north of Avignon.
“It continues to roll, but at a slow pace”, assures the SNCF to the Parisian, without knowing when the traffic will be able to resume normally.
It is therefore a black Saturday in the stations of the south of France, with delays sometimes of more than two hours.
At Avignon station, for example, trains bound for Aix-en-Provence (Bouches-du-Rhône) then Marseille (Bouches-du-Rhône) are displayed with a delay of more than 2h30, affecting passengers from these trains left at midday from Paris.
Hello, a fire broke out near the railway line between LAPALUD and ALLAN;
here is the link to follow the evolution of your TGV live: https://t.co/DV4hDyC6jw
– SNCF (@SNCF) August 6, 2022
Domino effect obliges: it is all the stations of the big tourist cities which are affected by the incident, insofar as the zone of the fire is a point of passage almost obligatory for the TGV connecting the south-east.
The train connecting Paris to Nice (Alpes-Maritimes), for example, passing through Toulon (Var), Cannes (Alpes-Maritimes) and Antibes (Alpes-Maritimes) is expected to arrive with a delay of 1h50.
The one in the other direction was posted around 4:30 p.m. with a 50-minute delay at the start.
In order to reduce the consequences of the fire, the SNCF decided to bypass it by setting up a modified route, without the Valence-TGV service, according to the traffic information available on the company's website.
It is possible for injured passengers to be compensated for a delay.
Between 30 minutes and 2 hours late, compensation corresponds to 25% of the ticket price.
It is 50% between 2 hours and 3 hours late and 75% beyond.
More than 1000 kilometers of congestion on the roads
The crossover of the holidays is not much more pleasant for motorists.
1,091 kilometers of traffic jams were recorded shortly after noon by Bison futé, against nearly 600 shortly before 5 p.m.
The day was classified as red for returns and departures, and even black for departures for the southeast.