€40m bid to cut railway delays

MORE THAN €40 million is to be spent in an attempt to stop copper cable thefts that cause more than 5,800 hours of delays across the rail network - and cost SNCF €30m over the past year.

The thefts of cables has paralysed sections of the network and even stopped Thalys and TGV Nord trains from using the Gare du Nord in Paris.

Skiers were also stuck in trains for several hours during the main winter holiday weekend after cable was stolen from the signalling system between Albertville and Chambéry.

As many as 40,000 travellers were thought to have been affected by the Rhône-Alpes theft.

With copper prices soaring to nearly €10,000 a tonne on international markets – it is now the second most expensive metal in the world after gold – thefts have tripled in two years.

There are more than 50 thefts a week and last year 2,500 people were arrested over 1,100 cable thefts.

Now the SNCF, rail network Réseau Ferré de France and the ecology minister have agreed an 18-month programme to safeguard the signalling system. RFF will pay €30m for the
work, with €10m from the state.

Work to secure the 32,000km of network includes an agreement with the gendarmerie to use its 48 EC135 helicopters to guard the track from the air.

The helicopters are equipped with high-performance thermal imaging cameras.

Announcing the plan, ecology minister Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet said: "We must go further in our efforts to protect the SNCF lines."

The new investment comes on top of a programme, 90 per cent complete, of investing €12m between 2008 and 2010 to protect the infrastructure.

She said they were examining a "new dimension" in securing the track by putting cables in trenches, setting up video-surveillance and trying out a programme of marking the cables so that they can be easily identified and less easily sold on.

At present, the copper cable is wrapped in plastic or rubber, but this can easily be burnt off and there is no way of telling where the cable came from. Technicians are developing a marking system that will be part of the metal.

In addition to the gendarmerie helicopter watch, the police would be stepping up patrols on the ground.