France - railways, public transport, services and incidents (merged posts)

[whole diary]

[stuving]

This railway line, from Le Soler on the edge of Perpignan to Villefranche-de-Conflent, is overhead electrified, which may seem odd given how Pyrenean it is. It has a rather odd history.

In 1912 it was used as an electrification test-bed by the Compagnie du Midi, who chose the German system of 12 kV 16.67 Hz. Before this was spread wider (there was this war ...) central government chose 1500 V DC^▸ (Direct Current), leaving this line as a little electric island. It was kept going until 1971 with original rolling stock, by then 60 year old. If any forum members were scouring Europe for such quaint ancient trains at the time you may have been to see it.

After a spell of diesel power, the OLE^▸ (Overhead Line Equipment, more often "OHLE") was adapted for 1500 V in 1984 (allegedly on the cheap) and it probably still has the trains it was equipped with then. The line out to Le Soler was rebuilt for the LGV^▸ (Large Goods Vehicle) over to Figueras, but still using 1500 V. Incidentally, the line from Villefranche-Vernet-Les-Bains (its official name) onward to Latour-de-Carol - "le train jaune" - is one of those scary French mountain railways with 850 V third rail. Some of the line is fenced, and some of the third rail has planks both side, but some of it is ... pretty naked.

[stuving]

Despite last night's official summary of witness statements, I'm beginning to wonder about this level crossing. There's just too many locals being quoted as saying it was not working properly, not just going back over years but in the last few days. Even allowing for the quotes being gathered by uncritical reporters and then passed through the 24-hour news echo chamber, so they mostly contradict themselves as well as each other, this crossing clearly was not good reliable kit. And SNCF^▸ (Societe Nationale des Chemins de fer Francais - French National Railways) have yet to issue anything other than non-committal holding statements.

The crossing should fail safe, at least in principle. So reports of the barriers staying down for long periods, staff taking ages to intervene, or trains passing very slowly, do not in themselves represent dangers. However, it is still not clear how closely the machinery was monitored, and how rapid any response to a failure would be.

I see two issues here. One is a failure of the barriers and lights at just the wrong instant, with a train seconds away. The other is the loss of confidence of road users if the barriers are down for long periods with no staff presence, especially if that happens often. It's all very well to say "turn round an go another way" - there are a lot of other level crossings nearby - but a bus can't do that, even without a load of impatient teenagers in the back. The railway has an absolute duty to protect road users by warning them and closing the crossing when needed. They also have a more general duty not to obstruct the road for no good reason. I imagine that in France that is spelled out more clearly than it is here.

Time, and the investigators, will tell.

[stuving]

As expected, Systra has been mis en examen (roughly charged) and SNCF^▸ (Societe Nationale des Chemins de fer Francais - French National Railways) is expected to follow in a few days. That allows for formal questioning, though how cautioning works with a company I'm not sure.

[stuving]

You may have seen that the death toll has sadly risen to six.

After a day spent with a bus, recreating the events of the accident, it was announced tonight that "traces" had been found on the side of original bus, which suggest at least the possibility of it pushing past the barrier lowered. The driver has been placed under arrest in hospital. But there is still great confusion (conveyed in the prosecutor's news releases) about the relative timing of the bus crossing and the crossing lights and barrier operating.

[Chris from Nailsea]

You may have seen that the death toll has sadly risen to six.

Thank you for your update, stuving.  I have, with much sadness, now amended the topic heading.

[stuving]

There was a little flurry of press coverage of this event one month, after, but without anything new to report. Then today we get the traditional leak from the official (criminal) enquiry, of witness statements (obtained by francetvinfo:).

These include, notably, those best placed to see - the train driver and trainee, driver and passenger of the van first in the queue the other side of the crossing, and two children in the bus right at the front. All agree that the bus (now stated as the first of three) drove through the lowered barrier.

The bus driver was interviewed three times by the juges, but not since being charged, and is still in hospital (psychiatric, as I understand it). Her story is quite different, of course. There was also an SMS on her phone recorded as arriving a few seconds before the impact, though never opened for reading. That should not be an issue, indeed it is probably a common occurrence.

I'm not sure those revelations will stop people jumping to take sides - but I doubt it. The driver has had a lot of support locally (she lives in the same village as all the kids on the bus), with a lot of those signing a petition coming from outside too. Plus there are those who assumed SNCF^▸ (Societe Nationale des Chemins de fer Francais - French National Railways) were to blame for a variety for reasons (unconnected with this event).

[SandTEngineer]

Thanks for posting that update, Stuving.  A very sad and distressing incident.  I wonder if the level crossing has an event recorder (data logger)?  Not seen one mentioned in the reports you have linked to so far.

[stuving]

Thanks for posting that update, Stuving.  A very sad and distressing incident.  I wonder if the level crossing has an event recorder (data logger)?  Not seen one mentioned in the reports you have linked to so far.

Initially, I understood SNCF^▸ (Societe Nationale des Chemins de fer Francais - French National Railways)'s comments on whether the level crossing operated properly to be based on recorded remote monitoring. However, I have not seen any clear statement of that; just references to what witnesses said. My assumption was based on the notion that keeping the crossing safe needs remote monitoring, at least of its power supply (including backup batteries, since there are press reports of thefts of those). Otherwise how can train drivers be told to proceed at caution?

The level crossing closure is triggered by the train at a treadle, as is its opening. I can't fathom quite how these are positioned, given the number of crossings, often close to stations. For example, on leaving Millas (where all trains stop) there is a crossing after 150 m, then the site of the accident after a further 740 m. The train, by the way, was Z 7369 - a 2-car EMU^▸ (Electric Multiple Unit) built in 1980-1984 by Francorail-ANF (now Bombardier). I also went searching for any safety-related text, e.g. a report or regulation, about on-board video recorders. I found none!

The line's signalling is very French - you might not recognise it as signalled at all. Information on this single track line is contradictory, but it's most likely to be CT (cantonnement téléphonique) updated to CAPI-95 (Cantonnement assisté par informatique). That means each block has a control point at each end (almost always a station), with a single signal controlling access to the block,  and also interlocked with the points exiting a passing loop. Here, there is no loop from the junction at Le Soler to Ille-sur-Tet, and as I can see no signals I assume this is one block of nearly 20 km.

The operators (probably chefs de gare) exchange messages to request the block, notify that a train has entered it, and confirm all of it has left at the other end. CT has just a telephone link, and a log book to record events, while CAPI has screens for the operators and a datalink, and records all transactions automatically. It (as CAPI-95, an update) also has a train detector that replaces the human eyeball component, and can stop a train entering without permission. The signals are not interlocked with CAPI!

So while you might expect some remote monitoring, most likely at the next station, it doesn't look as if there is any system that would record it.

[stuving]

This year, it's a holiday weekend, and it's back to fires again. OK, strictly speaking next weekend is the one with the big bad traffic jams, but this one is also rather too warm for spending hours in stations or packed trains. And the fire was in a big grid transformer on the Paris ring, not a railway one, but still very effective at closing the gare de Paris Montparnasse (again).
From Channel News Asia (!)

Fire blocks major Paris station at height of holiday exodus

Firefighters try to extinguish a fire of an electric transformer in Issy-les-Moulineaux, west of Paris, on Jul 27, 2018. (Photo: AFP /Stephane Delfour)

PARIS: A major fire in the Paris suburbs paralysed traffic in and out of the city's Montparnasse train station on Friday (Jul 27), just as thousands of French and foreign travellers head on their holidays this weekend.

The fire at an electrical centre run by the national transport network in Issy-les-Moulineaux, southwest of Paris, sent a massive plume of smoke rising into the skies.

The blaze, just next door to Microsoft's main French offices, prompted an evacuation of 2,500 people and caused a power cut to some 16,000 homes in the Paris suburbs, authorities said.

The fire shut down traffic just before noon at Montparnasse, the main station connecting Paris to west and southwest France, with rail operator SNCF^▸ (Societe Nationale des Chemins de fer Francais - French National Railways) warning of heavy disruption for the rest of the day.
...

[Red Squirrel]

The blaze, just next door to Microsoft's main French offices, prompted an evacuation of 2,500 people and caused a power cut to some 16,000 homes in the Paris suburbs, authorities said.
...

They should have tried switching it of and then switching it back on again...

[stuving]

The blaze, just next door to Microsoft's main French offices, prompted an evacuation of 2,500 people and caused a power cut to some 16,000 homes in the Paris suburbs, authorities said.
...

They should have tried switching it of and then switching it back on again...

In SNCF^▸ (Societe Nationale des Chemins de fer Francais - French National Railways)'s case, they seem to have had enough of getting the blame for whatever goes wrong. Since this time it's clearly RTE^‡(resolve)'s fault - it was their transformer fire, and their substation and cables in a tunnel that were destroyed - so they are talking aloud about claiming millions in compensation.

The story is that this was a 225/63 kV substation, and as well as one transformer going up (presumably of a pair), it took with it a load of switchgear and thirty 63 kV cables leading out to its loads. It is well over 2 km to the nearest point on the Montparnasse line, and may be a lot further to wherever the feed is.  RTE say the best they can do is to run temporary cables around the burnt-out section, at the earliest by Thursday.

In the mean time, SNCF do obviously have a back-up feed, but only at half power. Worse, they have no non-traction power to their local depot for Montparnasse, so can't prepare trains there. So from tomorrow they are limited to around half the number of trains they would run (on a very busy holiday weekend).

As usual there are politicos and journos complaining that they never imagined their electricity supply might actually fail and not come back on in a few minutes. I did hear that this kind of failure of a non-duplicated bit of the grid last happened thirty years ago - which sounds plausible. 55,000 domestic users also lost supply, and after 24 hours 7,000 were still off but due to be reconnected by the second evening.

And ... yesterday evening Gare de l'Est lost traction power for an hour due to a train fault. And Gare du Nord suffered similarly due to lightning, there being a lot of that plus pretty serious storms over Paris. That train's fault might well have been lightning-induced, I think, but the fire was too early for that to be likely.

[stuving]

Here we go again, on the last big holiday-travel weekend this summer ... but this time not in Paris. Yesterday the second unit of a TGV^▸ (Train a Grande Vitesse) derailed coming into Marseille Saint-Charles. Several tracks in the throat are still blocked, and will be into tomorrow (Sunday), but nine platforms out of 16 are still accessible. (English story from RFI.)

Priority to use that capacity is being given to TGVs, it being such a busy time for going home. It's a "through terminus" like Swansea, and can be by-passed, and is by some trains. TERs can terminate at one of the other city stations, though services have been reduced.

Recovery will not start until tonight, as they are still bringing in heavy kit, looking, and no doubt scratching heads. The last seven carriages plus power car need re-railing - evidently the bogies were given a free choice of track and no consensus emerged (rather like that HST^▸ (High Speed Train) at Laira).

[IndustryInsider]

Thanks for continuing ‘coverage’ of such events in France, Stuving.  Without you, unless we did the research ourselves, we might be led into thinking such events only ever occur in the UK^▸ (United Kingdom).

[stuving]

Thanks for continuing ‘coverage’ of such events in France, Stuving.  Without you, unless we did the research ourselves, we might be led into thinking such events only ever occur in the UK^▸ (United Kingdom).

Thank you for that.

As an aside, while quickly visiting a point (a long way) vertically above Marseille for that post, I noticed that the roundhouse next to MSC station had, since last year, lost its track and turntable and the tiles off its roof. So, is it being demolished?

Looking this up (having paused only to look up he French for roundhouse) it turns out it's not being entirely demolished. That was proposed by SNCF^▸ (Societe Nationale des Chemins de fer Francais - French National Railways) in 2014, but refused by the city at planning. The building is now being restored, and will be used for garaging and light maintenance of smaller rolling stock (TERs). How that fits into a round building I can't imagine, but it sounds like it will survive only as a bit of a large new building. The turntable has been scrapped - but then big ones are very hard to move.

[stuving]

SNCF^▸ (Societe Nationale des Chemins de fer Francais - French National Railways) finished removing the derailed train during the night of Sunday/Monday. There are several reasons why it took well over two days, despite being urgent, not just that it involved eight vehicles and happened on a platform line so access was largely from one side. It was a duplex (double-deck) train, so big and top-heavy, and the shared bogies present a more difficult lifting job, and also prevent each carriage being removed once rerailed to give access to the end of the next.

Repairing the track is predicted to finish by Friday, and until then disruption will continue. TGVs^▸ (Train a Grande Vitesse) are all running, though the ones to Nice/Toulon are using Marseille Blancarde instead of Saint-Charles. TERs are significantly reduced, to a peak-only service in some cases, though part of that is due to closures for engineering work (common in August).

So while the shared bogie deign is good for safety, making it almost impossible for carriages to overturn, it does have its drawbacks.