Passengers on a high speed TGV train from Nice to Paris had to spend most of the night in a tunnel outside Marseille after their train broke down on Tuesday night.

"/> Passengers on a high speed TGV train from Nice to Paris had to spend most of the night in a tunnel outside Marseille after their train broke down on Tuesday night.

" />
SHARE
COPY LINK

TGV

Angry train passengers spend night in tunnel

Passengers on a high speed TGV train from Nice to Paris had to spend most of the night in a tunnel outside Marseille after their train broke down on Tuesday night.

Angry train passengers spend night in tunnel
Besopha

The 700 passengers were victims of a power cut just after 9pm.

An SNCF spokesman told The Local that a rescue operation was hampered by the fact the incident occurred during a tunnel.

“Our normal procedures were slowed down,” said the spokesman. “Also, there was no phone network available.”

He added that SNCF had 100 people working on the incident overnight.

A replacement train eventually arrived to take travellers back to Marseille’s main train station.

Angry passengers vented their anger as they disembarked at around 4.40am.

Several complained that train operator SNCF had not responded quickly enough.

“It was us who called the emergency services,” one passenger told BFM TV. “We forced people to open the doors because people were suffering. SNCF has no idea what it’s doing.”

“There was no air conditioning, no beer,” said another. “There were children in the train. It was really awful.”

“We spent seven hours in total in that tunnel,” another passenger told news channel LCI.

SNCF offered all passengers the option of spending time in a hotel if they wished although none accepted the offer.

Most passengers preferred to wait for a replacement train which SNCF provided. The train arrived at Paris’ Gare de Lyon station later on Wednesday morning.

Around 20 passengers accepted SNCF’s offer of a taxi back to their homes.

The company has also promised to refund all passengers double the cost of their tickets.

 

Member comments

Log in here to leave a comment.
Become a Member to leave a comment.

ENVIRONMENT

French trains ditch plastic water bottles

French national train operator SNCF has announced it will no longer sell water in plastic bottles on its services, saying the move would reduce the waste from roughly two million drinks.

French train bars will no longer be able to see plastic bottles of water.
French train bars will no longer be able to see plastic bottles of water. Photo: BERTRAND LANGLOIS / AFP.

The plastic packaging will be replaced with recyclable cardboard for still water and aluminium for sparkling.

“Plastic is no longer fantastic,” head of consumer travel operations at the SNCF, Alain Krakovitch, wrote on Twitter on Thursday.

France has gradually increased restrictions on single-use packaging to help reduce waste amid growing evidence about the impact of plastic on sea life in particular.

The government announced on Monday that plastic packaging will be banned for nearly all fruit and vegetables from January next year.

The environment ministry said that 37 percent of fruit and vegetables were sold with plastic packaging, and only the most fragile produce such as strawberries will be given an exemption on the ban until 2026.

“We use an outrageous amount of single-use plastic in our daily lives,” the ministry said in a statement, adding that it was working to cut back “the use of throwaway plastic and boost its substitution by other materials or reusable and recyclable packaging.”

Last year, France passed a wide-ranging “circular economy” law to combat waste that forbids retailers from destroying unsold clothes and will ban all single-use plastic containers by 2040.

Paris city authorities announced this week that they were aiming to eliminate all plastic from state day-care centres, canteens and retirement homes by 2026.

SHOW COMMENTS