Trains disrupted as railman stabbed

TRAIN services have been massively disrupted across the country as rail workers walked out after a colleague was stabbed on the Lyon-Strasbourg Corail.

No trains were running on that line today and the SNCF said on average only one in four TER trains was running and one in three TGVs.

However, in the Ile-de-France service was "practically normal" with some delays on lines H, K, J and L and "normal" on the Thalys and Eurostar trains.

Emergency bus services were put in place to help get stranded passengers home in the rush-hour last night but this morning thousands of passengers were left waiting on scarce trains. At Gare de Lyon in Paris, where hundreds of passengers were on the platforms, there were only certain trains on the indicator board but others were being added at the last-minute as crew became available.

The walk-out started in the east of France after a ticket inspector was stabbed eight times on the Lyon-Strasbourg train. It quickly spread across the region and then throughout France as staff heard the details.

This morning the ticket inspector was said to be in a "stable condition" in hospital in Besancon after surgery.

SNCF president Guillaume Pepy said he has arranged a meeting with rail unions and called on staff to restart work saying: "Emotions are running high but it serves nothing to penalise rail users because of an unbalanced individual who committed a very rare mad act."

Transport minister Thierry Mariani said he "understood the disgust" of the SNCF workers but added "it's not by stopping the trains that we stop the madmen".

SNCF has set up a special Numero Vert freephone hotline for information: 0 805 90 36 35