Vandals delay TGV travellers

HIGH-SPEED TGV train services south of Paris are being hit by delays of up to 90 minutes after vandals cut a cable in the Yonne.

Thousands of travellers heading from Gare de Lyon to Lyon, Marseille, Perpignan, Barcelona and Geneva face delays for most of today, with around 100 services being affected.

Vandals cut signalling cables last night 90km south of Paris near the village of Vaumort, between Sens and Auxerre. Trains on the TGV Sud-Est service were immediately halted by automatic alert systems.

Around 15 trains were affected and some passengers on the Paris-Lyon route were delayed for up to three hours as affected TGVs were diverted on to non high-speed lines.

SNCF said that engineers had worked through the night to try to rebuild the cabling system.

Meanwhile, last night commuters using Gare d'Austerlitz faced delays after a power cut.

Passengers intending to travel can get information on how, or if, they will be affected on the SNCF website www.infolignes.com