passengers stranded for eight hours on a train on the Le Havre-Rouen-Paris line

The 200 passengers on a Nomad train on the Le Havre-Rouen-Paris line were stranded for eight hours on Monday February 26 due to the fall of two trees on the tracks near Le Havre after a strong gust of wind, reports France Bleu Normandy. The train was stopped near Saint-Laurent-de-Brèvedent, in Seine-Maritime, between noon and 8 p.m. Traffic was completely interrupted on the line in both directions and was still disrupted Monday evening.

Two trees fell on the tracks as Normandy was swept by powerful gusts of wind on Monday, peaking at 130 km/h. The firefighters managed to free the first one, which had fallen around midday by cutting the catenaries. But a second tree fell a kilometer further on, delaying the evacuation of the train.

“No electricity, no heating, no toilets”

“We stayed six hours 300 meters from the Saint-Laurent-de-Brèvedent station and we were not evacuated”, specifies to France Bleu Hubert Dejean de la Batie, vice-president of the Normandy region, present on the train. He also says that “The electricity was cut off, soon passengers couldn’t charge their phones, there was no heating and no toilets.” Around 8 p.m., the train was able to be towed by another train to Étainhus station in Seine-Maritime, where coaches were waiting for passengers.