Brussels - Strasbourg MEP's train diverted to Disneyland

[endecotp]

I saw this on the Guardian:

Rail signalling error diverts Strasbourg-bound MEPs to Disneyland

‘We are not a Mickey Mouse parliament,’ jokes one MEP after diversion causes 45-minute delay

www.theguardian.com

A French train carrying hundreds of MEPs and their teams from Brussels ended up by accident at Marne-la-Vallée, the stop for Disneyland Paris.

Every month the parliament charters two trains for the plenary session in Strasbourg to avoid a large convoy of vehicles on the 300-mile (480km) stretch between the two cities.

SNCF Networks said the cause was a signalling error at the Roissy Charles-de-Gaulle TGV station. It apologised for the inconvenience, noting that the diversion caused only a 45-minute delay.

I was a bit surprised to see it taking that almost-via-Paris route, but having looked at a map it is clearly going to be the fastest option since the LGV Est opened. Does anyone happen to know what happened before the LGV Est, and how long the journey time was?

 

[deltic]

A old newspaper article about TGV improvements from 2014 https://www.euractiv.com/section/tr...link-reinforces-parliament-s-strasbourg-seat/ states

A train journey currently takes five and a half hours as the train travels through Wallonia and Luxembourg.

 

[popeter45]

https://signal.eu.org/osm/#locs=50.835981,4.334916;48.584997,7.733763
yea seems fasterst route thou going via luxemburg is only 30 minutes faster

Railway Routing

 

[endecotp]

https://signal.eu.org/osm/#locs=50.835981,4.334916;48.584997,7.733763

Thanks for the link. It shows the LGV route being 2h27, and if I click on "no high speed lines" it shows a route via Luxembourg that takes 3h34.

I guess these are best-possible times based on line speeds, or something. How realistic are they?

(Edit to add: Via Cologn is 3h20.)

 

[Snow1964]

https://signal.eu.org/osm/#locs=50.835981,4.334916;48.584997,7.733763

Thanks for the link. It shows the LGV route being 2h27, and if I click on "no high speed lines" it shows a route via Luxembourg that takes 3h34.

I guess these are best-possible times based on line speeds, or something. How realistic are they?

On the LGV if slow down, will soon hold up train behind, so virtually everything runs at line speed.

From memory is 300km/h on Nord, 320km/h on Est, but bit slower 220 and 270km/h on interconnection, less on the spur linking the Est line.

 

[popeter45]

https://signal.eu.org/osm/#locs=50.835981,4.334916;48.584997,7.733763

Thanks for the link. It shows the LGV route being 2h27, and if I click on "no high speed lines" it shows a route via Luxembourg that takes 3h34.

I guess these are best-possible times based on line speeds, or something. How realistic are they?

(Edit to add: Via Cologn is 3h20.)

that second link i had shows a route thats 3h07

 

[Gerald Fiennes]

The original trains from Brussels left from Bruxelles-Schumann station, almost adjacent to the European Parliament, but the TGVs cannot use the route there and start from Bruxelles-Midi instead. Allow an extra 25 mins or so to get to them.

From my experience in Brussels over the years, I always felt that the advantage of the TGV option was that the trains were entirely provided by SNCF as part of the encouragement to keep the Parliament at Strasbourg for as long as possible and, of course, in doing so it showcased their rail technology (which unfortunately doesn't seem to extend to showing the driver the route they are signalled on until it is too late to do anything about it...). The previous operation was provided by SNCB/NMBS.