For them, the journey has turned into a nightmare. The 600 or so passengers on a Thalys Paris-Brussels train had to wait four hours, stranded on a train, in scorching temperatures, on Tuesday night. They found themselves trapped at the Saint-Denis station, unable to get off the train.
Due to a breakdown, the train found itself without electricity, and therefore without air conditioning, while the outside temperature was around 40°C. But passengers no longer had access to water or toilets. In photos and videos posted on Twitter, we can see that some of the train’s windows were broken in an attempt to get air or bottled water.
Lack of communication with passengers.
Some passengers criticize the lack of communication: “The fact of not having information obviously increases even more the stress of the passengers who were there”, says Agnès Evren MEP herself, on board the train. It was enough, at that time, regular travel information, but nothing happened.”
The circulation of other trains in this busy station also complicated the evacuation of the stranded passengers. “We were at rush hour, security precautions had to be taken,” said a company representative.
Almost 12 hours late on everything
Some of the passengers were evacuated at night, but 200 of them had to remain on the train, a spokesman for the railway company told the Belgian agency, quoted by the independent. Due to a second power outage in the area, passengers from Brussels had to wait until the next morning to catch a train.
Thalys management has apologized and says the fault was related to high temperatures. The company will also compensate passengers.
Source: BFM TV
