France -

Article published the Thursday 26 July 2012 - Latest update : Thursday 26 July 2012

Delays on southbound French railway after TGV sabotage

A TGV train arrives at Paris's Montparnasse station

Getty Images/EyesWideOpen

By RFI

Up to 60,000 TGV passengers heading for the south of France experienced delays of up to an hour and a half on Thursday after vandals cut a cable on the high-speed train line in Burgundy. Trains heading for Lyon, Marseille, Perpignan, Barcelona and Geneva were affected.

On Wednesday evening safety systems stopped trains about 90 kilometres south of Paris after they detected the act of vandalism.

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Trains have been redirected away from high-speed lines, leading to delays of between half an hour and three hours on the Paris-Lyon line.

The cable was severed in the Yonne department of Burgundy.

The French rail company, the SNCF, has asked police to open a criminal inquiry into the incident.

Its technicians had worked all night to repair the damage and continued to do so Thursday morning, it said.

Information on delays can be found on the SNCF's http://www.infolignes.com/ site.