BRETIGNY-SUR-ORGE: The train derailment that killed at least six people in central France on Friday may have been caused by a loose steel component at a junction, French train operator SNCF said.
The component, which should have remained bolted onto the track, moved to “the middle of the track junction”, preventing the rolling stock from passing through, Pierre Izard, head of infrastructure services at SNCF, said yesterday.
SNCF said it would immediately start checking some 5,000 similar junctions throughout the French rail network. The accident, which injured dozens of people, marred festivities for France’s July 14 Bastille Day, traditionally the cue for French families to embark on long summer holidays.
Workers spent the night cutting through tangled metal, but found no more victims. A crane was brought to the crash site to lift a carriage that fell onto its side and others torn open in the accident.
The train, a regional service that travels more slowly than France’s TGV express trains, veered off the track en route from Paris to the city of Limoges at the station of Bretigny-sur-Orge, 26km south of the capital.
National rail operator SNCF said the train was carrying around 385 people and that an investigation was under way.
Transport Minister Frederic Cuvillier dismissed speculation the train was travelling too fast as it entered the station and said the accident could have been much worse if the train driver had not reacted quickly to avoid hitting another train that was only 200 metres (yards) away. “There could have been a much more serious collision with a much heavier toll,” Cuvillier told France Info.
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