A day after a day of rail disruptions, the Transport Minister on Tuesday promised measures to protect the “nervous points” of the network against vandalism, but warned that it was not possible to achieve “zero risk”.
Monitoring the nearly 28,000 kilometers of railway tracks in France is “very complicated”, admitted Philippe Tabarot, guest of “4 Vérités” on France 2, recalling that SNCF Réseau dedicates around “one hundred million euros” to it each year. The railway network cannot be “totally secure,” the minister added, mentioning the figure of “10,000 intrusions a year.”
“Zero risk, no,” Philippe Tabarot insisted. “On the other hand, with the techniques that exist today, we still have the possibility of protecting a certain number of sensitive points. And that is the goal of tomorrow.” Among these techniques are “GPS trackers”, alarms and even drones, he listed.
“Probably criminal” fire
Traffic on the Southeast high-speed line was interrupted throughout Monday, in the middle of school holidays, which affected the travel of at least 50,000 TGV passengers, in addition to many TER passengers. The origin of these problems: a fire during the night from Sunday to Monday in the signaling and communication cables, on the high-speed line south of Valence (Drôme).
The situation was aggravated by a theft of catenary cables on Monday morning near Bollène (Vaucluse), on the classic line, which limited the passage of TGVs to this route. Philippe Tabarot, who spoke on Monday of a “probably criminal” fire near Valence, affirmed that an act by the ultra-left was “one of the ways”, but referred to the investigators.
“It is true that for several months, some opponents of specific development projects, whether road or railway, want to sow panic in our country and use this type of means to make their voices heard, with the consequences that this may have, which are totally unacceptable,” the minister remarked.
Source: BFM TV
