“I had a train booked to go down to the South, but it was cancelled.” At the Gare de Lyon in Paris, the exasperation and annoyance of the French whose trains were canceled a few hours before Christmas is palpable. “You can’t book another train,” a thirty-year-old Parisian tells BFMTV that he will have no choice but to “rent a car to come down” to see his relatives for the holidays.
Some French people, baffled by this much-criticized strike by SNCF controllers, will have to stay home for Christmas. This is the case of a woman interviewed by BFMTV, who is forced to spend December 24 and 25 in a reduced committee because she cannot find an alternative solution after the cancellation of her train to Savoy.
Extended routes and exorbitant costs
“We find ourselves staying at home…”, breathes this woman. “Blablacar, it’s not worth it, it would take 15 hours to get back to Savoy, it would be complicated… We only need luggage, skis, we can’t count on that. And then everyone rushed to find the solutions that remained, in particular the rental platforms.
Others look for alternative solutions, which are often painful and/or expensive. Some travelers tell BFMTV that they were forced to take an early vacation to make it in time for Christmas. Several, for example, had to take one more day to be able to leave on Thursday.
On vacation in Strasbourg in recent days, a couple from Marseille had to find an emergency solution to be able to return to the South in time for the holidays, their train having also been cancelled.
Unfortunately for them, the couple will have to “It’s 9pm Friday night and we’ll be arriving Saturday at 8:30am.”
Same inconvenience for Isabelle and her husband, whose train to Savoie has also been cancelled. “The solution for us is to leave very early on Saturday morning at 7 in the morning to arrive in Aix-les-Bains at 6 in the evening and in wheelbarrows.” However, a real obstacle course awaits them: the couple must first take a TGV between Strasbourg and Mulhouse, then a TER to Dijon. Once there, 4 hours of waiting until your next train to Lyon by TER, and finally Aix-les Bains. Total travel time: 12 hours.
Waiting hours at SNCF station counters
This Thursday, Lilian also had trouble joining her family. The young man had to fall back on the car. “I was supposed to leave yesterday (Wednesday) by plane, but I found out the night before last that my return train was cancelled, so we had no choice but to take the car all day Wednesday from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. to do Nice- Lille”. , in the rain with expensive gasoline, the toll, a lost day with the family, plus our two lost plane tickets.”
Similarly, Inès spent several hours at the SNCF ticket office at the Montparnasse station, this Thursday, hoping to be able to change her tickets. Thanks to her patience, the young woman has found an alternative solution, although on Saturday she expects a beautiful trip. “I had to go to my parents’ house in Annecy and I find myself traveling 9 hours,” she says smiling but bitterly into the BFMTV microphone.
In the end, she “had to replace (her) tickets for short connections: Paris-Maconville, Maconville-Macon Lochet TGV, up to Annecy. I had even raised the question of doing a solidarity dinner, but in the end, I’m still going to come back with my family”.
Like these commuters, 200,000 commuters saw their trains canceled over the weekend due to the strike. Only two out of three trains will run this weekend, according to the SNCF’s global estimate. Cancellations almost exclusively affect TGVs. On Friday, in detail, two of the three TGVs should run on the Atlantic and Mediterranean axes, one of the two trains on the North axis (it is announced that the Paris-Lille shuttle is almost normal) and three of the four TGVs on the This. TGVs between provincial stations will be more affected. Three Ouigo out of four must also circulate.
Source: BFM TV
