A TGV from Perpignan to Paris experienced a rare delay of more than 5 hours during the night from Sunday to Monday. The train was due to arrive at Lyon station at 11:18 p.m. and was blocked shortly after Valence due to a personal accident in Saint-Georges-d'Espéranche in the Isère department.
“At first, people were worried, but finally, when we understood that we were going to spend the night on the train, we ended up accepting
,” says a passenger boarding at Valencia station. Twenty minutes after the train's departure from the TGV station in the prefecture of the Drôme department, a radio alert, used for emergency situations, is triggered and sent to all trains in the sector to interrupt their circulation.
“The last trains [of the day] were then diverted to a conventional line
,” specifies the SNCF. The TGV to Paris returned to the TER station in Valence to bypass the accident and reach Lyon in order to then travel on the high-speed route to Paris, although more slowly according to night standards.
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“At first, the controller was as lost as we were. He imagined hypothetical scenarios on the loudspeaker, it made people laugh
,” says the same passenger living in Paris.
“In Valencia, we were given special permission to smoke on the quay, everyone sympathized
,” he also says.
“Serious”
personal
accident
Le Parisien evokes a neighbor who was a nurse who had to start her day at 7 a.m. or a young grandmother who had to go to Parc Astérix with her grandchildren. And above all, a traffic jam on arrival in Paris in front of the taxi line at 5 a.m., the Uber network itself being saturated.
The SNCF has distributed meal trays in Lyon and specifies that passengers will benefit from compensation of 100% of their ticket according to the rules in force for a delay of more than 5 hours.
“In any case, the controller informed us regularly, even when he did not know, telling us at the end that the blockage was due to a serious accident and that the resumption of the train had to be decided by the prosecutor.”
According to the
Dauphiné Libéré
, a forty-year-old was hit by another TGV linking Paris to Marseille. An investigation was opened after the death of at least one person,
the Vienna prosecutor's office
reported to Le
Figaro , specifying that the interview of the train driver could not be carried out yesterday evening,
"to allow the train to leave as soon as possible"
.