News

Eurostar train services were disrupted after vandals jammed iron reinforcing bars into two electrical lines on a high-speed rail track.

More than 30 trains from France to London, Brussels and other routes through northern France, where the vandalism occurred, were delayed today (8 November), the French national rail authority said.

No injuries have been reported, but hundreds of people were stranded for hours on the tracks and others crowded into train stations awaiting delayed departures.

The chief of the SNCF national rail network said it was the fourth act of "malice, even sabotage," on high-speed French rail lines in the past three weeks.

"I am very, very angry," Guillaume Pepy, said on French television TF1, saying the railways had fallen victim to "imbecile acts."

In today's incident, rail inspectors found iron rods used for reinforcing concrete stuck in overhead electrical lines on the route between Paris and the northern city of Lille, the rail network said in a statement. One rod was found on the northbound line, the other on the southbound line.

Three trains were on the line when the incident occurred, and at least 350 passengers were stuck on the tracks while rail workers rerouted them, the rail network said. More than 30 other trains were delayed — some up to five hours — and one was cancelled, according to the rail network Web site.

Crowds filled Paris' Gare du Nord train station as passengers awaited delayed departures. Longer-than-usual lines for the Eurostar trains that travel to London through a tunnel under the English Channel snaked through the station.

A fire in the tunnel last month shut down cross-Channel train traffic briefly and injured several people.

Transport Minister Dominique Bussereau urged greater police surveillance of French railways, condemning "this indescribable act that could put lives in danger." He said those responsible could face up to 10 years in prison and heavy fines if caught and convicted.