Hours of delays for commuters

TENS of thousands of Paris commuters were stuck for several hours after a series of incidents on rail lines north out of the city.

RER and Transilien services to and from the Gare du Nord were paralysed when a power line failure caused a "snowball effect" that saw passengers abandoning trains and forcing rail authority bosses to cut all power as they wandered along the tracks.

The trouble started at 17.45 last night with a power transmission problem on a train between Paris and Mitry in Seine-et-Marne - but it was not until nearly eight hours later, at 1.30, that the last delayed passengers were finally on trains home.

An SNCF spokesman said only around 150 passengers were affected in the first incident and it was fixed "very quickly" but by then passengers had jumped off the train, which was stuck between two stations.

Within a couple of hours tens of thousands were stranded when all trains had to be halted on the B, D, H and K lines.

Céline Sibert, director of Transilien Paris-Nord, told reporters that with passengers walking on the lines in total darkness they could not risk running trains. That had "paralysed services".

Gare du Nord, which sees 500,000 passengers a day, was jammed with angry commuters with many complaining that they could not get information on what was happening.

Some buses were brought in to help clear the station but many passengers did not reach their destinations until after midnight.

High-speed Eurostar and Thalys trains were also affected, facing delays averaging around an hour.
Screengrab from BFMTV at Gare-du-Nord