Thanks to an emergency stop system, the TGV, whose driver committed suicide by jumping from his moving train on Tuesday, December 24, stopped automatically without causing any injuries among the passengers.
A tragedy on New Year's Eve 2024. The driver of a TGV committed suicide this Tuesday, December 24 by jumping from his moving train on the South-East line. Another tragedy was, however, avoided: that of the “rail disaster” underlined the new Minister of Transport, Philippe Tabarot, at the microphone of BFMTV this Wednesday.
“Without the safety system in place, it could have been a particularly serious railway disaster with hundreds, even almost 1,000 passengers, who could have lost their lives,” he said.
This safety system, called “Automatic standby with support control” (Vacma), has the function of confirming the presence and operationality of the driver. And thus trigger emergency braking in the event of a failure on its part.
“The train's engines cut off automatically”
“Every 30 seconds, the employee must operate either a hand lever or a foot pedal. If nothing happens after five seconds, an alarm goes off. And if nothing still happens after three seconds, there is emergency braking to stop the train,” detailed Gérard Feldzer, BFMTV transport consultant.
“The train's engines automatically cut off their traction effort and the automatic emergency braking device is triggered at the same time,” SNCF said in a press release.
Before adding: “In the case of yesterday’s tragedy, this safety device worked as expected.”
In addition to the automatic stopping of the train, an alarm is also triggered for the regulatory agents, i.e., in this case, for those operating on the South-East line. They must check that no other train can collide with the stationary TGV. The systems are “doubled, tripled, to ensure maximum safety,” a retired TGV driver assured Le Parisien.
“The regulator, on its optical control panel, immediately saw that a Vacma was flashing and that emergency braking had been carried out”, for its part affirmed the SNCF to the Ile-de-France daily.
This “personal accident” was the cause of significant delays Tuesday evening on the LGV Sud-Est, which surrounded around ten TGVs and affected thousands of passengers on Christmas Eve, with delays of up to 'at three and five o'clock. The SNCF insisted on this “terrible tragedy” which plunged the entire railway family into “mourning” on this Christmas Day.
The Minister of Transport, Philippe Tabarot, told BFMTV that a “psychological unit” had been set up for the driver's relatives and colleagues.
