the essential
On the night of Tuesday December 24 to Wednesday December 25, a TGV driver committed suicide by jumping from his moving train, causing numerous disruptions. These could have been much more serious if the safety devices had not worked.
A difficult night. Dozens of travelers were stuck inside a TGV during the night of Tuesday December 24 to Wednesday December 25. Others saw their trains delayed for many hours this New Year's Eve. The cause? A driver “ended his life while the train was moving,” SNCF said in a press release this morning.
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A dozen trains delayed for New Year's Eve: the SNCF evokes a possible “act of suicide” by a train driver
This suicide was at the origin of the major disruptions on the South-East high-speed line which have affected more than thousands of travelers since Tuesday evening. And many of them railed against the railway company. “Thank you SNCF”, we could read, ironically, on social networks. Comments which annoyed a union representative of the company interviewed by Le Parisien. “They should say thank you to the SNCF, indeed, but thank you that a TGV whose driver has ended his life can stop on its own, without causing any casualties among the travelers, or even any injuries.”
“There are more serious things”
Indeed, if the driver's lifeless body was found in the evening, the SNCF, which insisted on this “terrible drama” which plunged the entire railway family into “mourning” on this Christmas Day, explained that the Security systems worked perfectly. “As soon as the driver left his driving position, the train's automatic stopping devices were activated and the train stopped automatically,” the railway company said.
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TGV delayed for New Year's Eve: SNCF confirms suicide of TGV driver
How did this happen? The SNCF explains that the safety device, called “Automatic Standby with Support Maintenance Control” (VACMA), “makes it possible to confirm the active presence of the driver at all times” in the train's driving cabin. Concretely, the driver must “alternately press then release either a pedal with the foot or a switch with the hand. If he does not release the pressure every 30 seconds or if he does not press the mechanism again after 5 seconds , a very loud alarm goes off in the driver's cabin to make him react.
And if he doesn't do so, “the train's motors automatically cut off their traction effort and the automatic emergency braking device is triggered at the same time.” The scenario of a runaway train derailing, without a pilot and without being able to stop, is therefore impossible. “These people should realize that, even if it is annoying, there are more serious things,” another unionist tried to mitigate this morning, quoted by Le Parisien. Because, “in the case of Tuesday evening's tragedy, the security system worked as expected” and prevented the evening from turning into an absolute tragedy.
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