Traffic was disrupted at the departure and arrival of Strasbourg station due to the release of smoke on a train this Thursday, October 10.
The special high-speed train which is to bring many European parliamentarians back to Brussels after the plenary session held this week in Strasbourg suffered damage and passengers were stranded for more than four hours in the Strasbourg station. the Alsatian capital this Thursday, October 10.
“A release of smoke on the engine” led to the evacuation of a train and the platforms of the Strasbourg station, the SNCF press service told AFP shortly after 3 p.m. Most trains scheduled to depart or arrive at Strasbourg station were then delayed or canceled. The station had not been evacuated but access to the tracks was briefly blocked by SNCF agents. The special TGV for Brussels, which was to leave Strasbourg at 2:57 p.m., finally left around 7:15 p.m.
“It went boom!”
“At 2:45 p.m. I saw an explosion in the TGV locomotive with a big cloud of smoke coming out,” Emmanuel Foulon, a parliamentary attaché who is part of the “caravan” of elected officials, explained to AFP commuting between Brussels and Strasbourg one week a month.
“It went boom! Three minutes later we received a message saying that the train had to be emptied and that we had to head towards the tunnel.”
Emmanuel Foulon (A parliamentary attaché)
“The firefighters arrived. I think it was more of a technical problem than anything else. It’s strange because there was the explosion but no one really seemed to react much. It was at the ‘front of the train and it’s a very, very long train, it’s the one that connects the Parliament in Strasbourg to Brussels. It went rather calmly.’
Firefighters intervention
The firefighters indicated for their part that “firefighters from the Bas-Rhin fire and rescue service intervened at Strasbourg central station for the release of smoke in the upper part of a locomotive of a TGV train Eurostar departing for Brussels”, in a press release.
“This train, carrying staff from the European Parliament, had 740 passengers. The passengers, all unharmed, were evacuated to the station hall. (…) The lockout of the electrical line was necessary to carry out the extinguishing a hot spot, using a powder extinguisher. SNCF traffic was cut off at the time of the incident,” added the firefighters.
TGV Est accident which caused the death of 11 people: SNCF found guilty
With AFP
