• 5 months ago
French railway operator allays fears for safety after sabotage on train lines

French railway operator SNCF says on July 26, 2024 that no safety issues have been detected after saboteurs struck France's TGV high-speed train network in a series of pre-dawn attacks across the country, causing travel chaos and exposing security gaps ahead of the Paris Olympics opening ceremony later that day. One in three trains were operating on the Atlantic coast as trains running north were running behind by just an hour. "For us it's, it's really a pity. It's difficult to accept also just because, obviously, we were working for months to make sure that everything was going to happen properly. And today it's hard to accept," said director of Atlantic TGV Lines of SNCF Railway Company, Franck Dubourdieu. There was no immediate claim of responsibility.

REUTERS VIDEO

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Transcript
00:00So we, on the Atlantic Coast, we operate 250 trains a day.
00:30We had four trains with athletes and two of them were able to operate.
00:37One was cancelled and one is under process to be operated.
00:42So the impact on the opening ceremony is very, very few.
00:59The fact is just that, because of this issue, we are not able to run the full schedule.
01:12And now we have one train over three able to operate on the Atlantic Coast.
01:18All the trains are operating normally but with roughly a one to two hour delay on the
01:24east of France.
01:26And for the north of France, some trains were cancelled, but roughly the other trains are
01:33operating with one hour delay.
01:41So we have 30,000 kilometres of railway in France, so it's a very large network.
01:50It's absolutely impossible to check all the points.
01:53What we are doing currently is some specific tour organised by experts on very targeted areas.
02:06And we have been helped also with 50 drones which have been provided to us to control
02:18the most that we can those specific areas.
02:22So we are reinforcing our system to be able to cope with the situation.
02:29Today what we can say is that there is no safety issue for operating trains and anyway
02:35we will not operate one train if there is one risk.
02:39So that's our main concern, to make sure that we travel safely on the French network.
02:52No, there is an investigation ongoing with the French authority.
03:02All what we know is just that it was definitely targeted on SNCF and on the high speed train network.
03:09The fact is that it wasn't, at this point I cannot say that it was dangerous, but it
03:15was really impactful.
03:17So what we have now to make sure is that we can inform all the passengers that we will
03:23take care of them.
03:25That's currently what the crew are doing today and we are trying to help them to reschedule
03:31their trip, probably tomorrow or at least on Monday.
03:48For us, it's really a pity.
03:56It's difficult to accept also just because obviously we were working for months to make
04:02sure that everything was going to happen properly and today it's hard to accept.
04:17It's 7 o'clock tonight.

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