The incident took place at 3:55 p.m., near Tournai in Belgium, where an animal was hit by a train from Brussels. The line that connects Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam and Cologne was interrupted.
Le Monde with AFP
Several Thalys were canceled Friday evening July 29 following the strike of an animal in Belgium, leaving thousands of travelers at the quay between France, Belgium and the Netherlands. The incident that took place in the middle of the afternoon, close to the border between France and Belgium damaged the train in circulation. “There has been a smoke clearance and this strike generated a technical problem on the motor which required the stop of the train and the cut of electricity,” said a spokesperson for Thalys.
Thousands of passengers have remained blocked in wagons on the line or waited at the station without knowing if their train would leave on Friday evening. While it had been announced that traffic would resume around 9:00 p.m., the six trains planned from Paris-North were finally all canceled, while at least a train from Amsterdam around 1:00 p.m. , finally arriving in Paris around 10:30 p.m.
The passengers of the damaged train were evacuated after two hours of waiting towards the Belgian capital, where they were housed, according to the spokesperson of the company controlled by Eurostar, a group itself owned by the SNCF, the Caisse de Dépôt du Québec and the SNCB (Belgian).
lack of information from Thalys
At the Gare du Nord, customers were offered to go home by taxi, sleep at the hotel, or in two Thalys trains that remained at the station, said the spokesperson. Several hundred travelers had waited for hours before learning that the planned trains were deleted, noted a journalist from the France-Presse agency.
“It’s a hassle. We had to take the train at 6:25 p.m. and people have been waiting for three hours,” said Ghislaine Flamang, 65. “The most painful? The lack of information (…) I go back to my sister in Mons. So I have to take another train in Brussels … so it will be tomorrow”.
The situation looked complicated, however, on the line for Saturday: with reservations closed on all his trains, Thalys advised his customers on Twitter to “turn to another means of transport” and ask for the Refund of the initial ticket.
Blocked on a train in Brussels, the spokesman for the European Commission Eric Mamer philosopha.
Learning Patience = Sitting in Brussels-Midi since Almost Almost Four Hours Waiting for my @thalys to Paris to Finully Lea… https://t.co/crup7s0j9o
“I learn patience, with four hours of waiting before my train leaves,” he wrote on Twitter. “I learn hope, praying so that it is not ultimately deleted. At least it’s good for my diet, since we are not given food.”