SNCF: fire on Bordeaux-Toulouse line causes delays of up to 5.5 hours

Tough weekend for travelers. A “massive fire” near the tracks caused rail traffic to stop for several hours on Sunday between Bordeaux and Toulouse, said SNCF, which had delays of 5.5 hours this weekend, ranking them among the busiest in the world.

After the Eurostar train mishaps on Saturday, this time it was an electrical transformer fire that occurred on Sunday morning between Colairac and Agen (Lot et Garonne), causing major disruptions hours before New Year’s Eve. 5.5 hours for your Inoui, Intercités and Ouigo TGVs,” SNCF wrote on its website.

Back to normal at the end of the day?

After repairs, service gradually began to resume around 3:15 p.m., a spokeswoman for the railroad company said. “Trains in the area will operate at reduced speeds as signaling equipment is not fully operational following the damage,” she added, adding that a return to normal operations could occur “by the end of the day.” Traffic between Marmande and Montauban gradually resumed from 16:00.

According to Sud-Ouest, the fire broke out around 10:30. Firefighters brought the situation under control shortly after noon. According to the SNCF Voyageurs office in Occitania, replacement buses have been installed on the Toulouse-Montauban route, in particular between Agen and Montauban.

On Saturday, the flooding of two tunnels in southern England led to the cancellation of all Eurostar trains between Paris and London, leaving around 30,000 passengers stranded on the busy day ahead of New Year’s celebrations. Services resumed on Sunday.