For some, the return from the All Saints’ Day holidays was complicated because of the passage of storm Domingos over the southwest of France. It caused a lot of damage to the railway network in New Aquitaine and caused huge delays for two trains on the Paris-Orléans-Limoges-Toulouse (POLT) line, whose passengers had to spend the night at Brive station, announced the SNCF on Sunday.
“In New Aquitaine, our signaling installations between Bordeaux and Hendaye were seriously damaged by winds stronger than expected,” said SNCF. On the La Rochelle side, “many trees are lying on the tracks” and in Vendée, “it is the leaves which have covered the rails posing risks of grip difficulties”, also specifies the public group.
Falling trees and leaves on the network cause massive delays
Downed trees on the POLT line also caused major difficulties for trains traveling there and two of them suffered massive delays. “A first Paris-Cahors train was stopped at Eguzon (Indre) by a grip problem due to massive leaf fall following the storm,” reported the SNCF without specifying its departure time. “The locomotive was no longer able to tow the train” and the SNCF had to send a second one to take care of it. He was able to leave “but several hours late”. All passengers then had to disembark at Brive station (Corrèze).
“Behind him, a Paris-Toulouse train then hit a first tree that had fallen on the tracks near Luant (Indre) then unfortunately a second near Allassac (Corrèze),” added the SNCF. Here again the railway group had to dispatch a second locomotive because the first was too damaged “to tow the train to Brive”. Passengers on these two trains were able to be picked up on Sunday morning after a night of waiting. Shortly before 11:00 a.m., they were still on their way to their final destination.
“Meal boxes were distributed to customers and civil protection was called to help in Brive and Allassac,” assured the SNCF, which apologized and promised “exceptional commercial compensation measures”.
“In all regions, SNCF Réseau agents are already in action to clear the tracks, clean the rails and repair the installations as quickly as possible to allow traffic to resume in complete safety” on this last day of the All Saints’ Day holidays, assured the railway group.