Sweaty passengers, poor flight attendants, a shortage of provisions.
Four hours stranded in a metal train in full sun in scorching heat.
This is what some 600 passengers on a Thalys Paris-Amsterdam train experienced on Tuesday evening.
"Already, we left at 6.40 p.m. instead of 5.25 p.m., because of a fire on a transformer further down the line", tells us this Wednesday morning Théo, a 27-year-old engineer, who was going to Brussels for a business trip. with his colleague.
The train starts from the Gare du Nord but for only a few cable lengths.
The locomotive came to a stop under a tunnel just before the Ile-Saint-Denis station (Seine-Saint-Denis).
“We had air conditioning, the sun was not beating down on the train.
We were cool, it was fine, ”recounts Théo.
According to Thalys, the reasons for this failure have not yet been precisely determined, but the company is able to say that it is “a hardware problem related to heat”.
Temperatures exceeded 40 degrees on Tuesday in Île-de-France.
“Despite several attempts, continues a representative of Thalys, the train could not leave”.
Read also“We are like cattle”: how Ile-de-France residents withstand the heat wave in public transport
According to Theo's testimony, after a few hundred meters, the train indeed stops again.
In the middle lane and in full sun.
“It's their first mistake, says the young engineer.
They should have left us in the tunnel, we were cool there, no one was suffocating”.
It is around 7:30 p.m., the electricity is cut.
The air conditioning too.
“There were discomforts, the dogs were suffocating on the ground”
“We could not open the doors for security reasons”, justifies the company.
Immobilized in the middle of the track, Thalys fears to evacuate its customers on the rails which surround the train.
Then begins an ordeal of sweat, thirst and annoyance for the passengers.
“After two hours, there was no more water in the bar wagon.
The controllers did everything they could, distributed Perrier, Coke, describes the Parisian engineer.
But there were discomforts, the dogs were suffocating on the ground”.
On Twitter, passengers even mention the ban on using the sanitary facilities.
"Everyone was swimming," explains Theo.
Tempers flare.
And particularly, according to the engineer's account, when a young mother "who could no longer stand up, her child in bad shape in her arms" burst into tears.
So, despite the reprobation of the on-board staff, passengers seized the emergency hammers and broke the window of the bar car.
The passengers broke the window of the bar car.
(DR)
"That's it, they broke the window," shouts the on-board manager to her colleagues on the phone, quoted by Theo.
A few seconds later, the air conditioning would have restarted.
“The timing was surprising,” notes the young man.
The front doors of the train blocked
Help eventually arrives.
“But they took a good long hour to decide whether we should get off on the right or on the left of the train”, laughs Theo a little.
Around 10 p.m., the decision is made.
However, the SNCF agents were unable to open the first three front doors of the train and struggled to install the emergency ladder.
Another hiccup, believes Theo.
It is finally by RER and four hours later that the passengers reach their starting point, the Gare du Nord.
There, no one welcomes them, denounces Théo: “From 7:30 p.m. to 10 p.m., we were blocked in direct sunlight and no one from the SNCF was waiting for us with reimbursement vouchers, for taxis or hotels.
»