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Gunman wounds 3 on THALYS service in Northern France (BBC)

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WatcherZero

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The new story changed a bit, making it less suspicious about US soldier presence.

The two US soldiers , a US student friend traveling with them, and a UK businessman were all sitting in Premier (First Class), when suddenly the train guard in a state of horror ran past, just after the first shot.
The two US soldiers then saw the guy with the Kalashnikov walk in, and immediately ran towards him, jumped onto him and tried to fight him.
Their student friend also joined in, and they managed to disarm the man.

When the UK businessman joined in, and they tried to tie him up, the gunman managed to pull out a gun and severely wound one of the US soldiers, but they managed to overpower him eventually.


Source: Dutch NOS, with information coming from witnesses and a press conference.

Yeah, some more details emerged which kinda makes the initial US servicemen's involvement announcement seem more publicity oriented by the US government and reduces the way the initial claim made it sound suspicious.

It wasn't the US servicemen who overhead the gun being loaded it was a Frenchman who then alerted others. The attackers assault rifle jammed and the US men jumped him after that, clobbering him on the head with his own pistol, they didn't intervene before he begun his spree. The involvement of the British man who resubdued the attacker after he overpowered the two US men, cutting himself free from the restraints they had tied and slashing one of the US men.

The three injured were:
1. Passenger shot before the gun jammed
2. The attacker sustained head wounds from being hit with the pistol
3. one of the US men had his neck slashed by a knife after the attacker cut through restraints.

The two US men and the British man were awarded medals for their action, note the initial press release didn't even mention the existence of the British man and claimed it was the US servicemen who overheard the attacker loading his gun in the toilet.
 
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47802

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Hats off to those who managed to overpower him, clearly this could have been a major tragedy and he could have potentially shot everybody on the train.

In terms of fleeing where would you flee to other than pulling the emergency stop and then trying to get off the train, and while you carn't really blame the staff I guess it doesn't look good.
 
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bunnahabhain

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Should similar happen on a train I was working I can't deny I'd do the same. Straight to the back, stop the train, and then if safe to do so evacuate passengers from where I am and get the driver to do the same at his end.

Bruce Ismay was branded a coward for getting in a half full lifeboat on the Titanic, was it to anybodies benefit for him to stay behind and die?
 

47802

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never mind whether its safe to evacuate or not if somebody was shooting at me I would looking for the nearest exit, but of course who knows how anybody will react in such a situation.
 
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Groningen

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I bet that in Hollywood a movie is being made about this event. Problem is that we give the bad persons tools of what not to do before an attack. As have you gun (or worse) ready before you enter the train (or what ever). It will hopefully the first and only attack, but fear the worst.
 

talltim

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I don't usually go in for conspiracy theories but how convenient it is that these two off duty Marines just happen to be on that train and walking past the particular toilet at exactly the same time as someone who is known to anti-terror police is in there loading weapons?
There are over 2 million active and reserve US military personnel, so the chance of some being around at the right moment isn't as slim as you might think.
Taking the whole population of the world there's about a 3650:1 chance of someone being in the US military, but if you consider that the vast majority of the the world's population isn't in a position to be travelling around Europe by train, that ratio becomes more favourable (although, of course, most of them will be in the US or on active service somewhere)
 

BestWestern

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Yeah, some more details emerged which kinda makes the initial US servicemen's involvement announcement seem more publicity oriented by the US government and reduces the way the initial claim made it sound suspicious.

It wasn't the US servicemen who overhead the gun being loaded it was a Frenchman who then alerted others. The attackers assault rifle jammed and the US men jumped him after that, clobbering him on the head with his own pistol, they didn't intervene before he begun his spree. The involvement of the British man who resubdued the attacker after he overpowered the two US men, cutting himself free from the restraints they had tied and slashing one of the US men.

The three injured were:
1. Passenger shot before the gun jammed
2. The attacker sustained head wounds from being hit with the pistol
3. one of the US men had his neck slashed by a knife after the attacker cut through restraints.

The two US men and the British man were awarded medals for their action, note the initial press release didn't even mention the existence of the British man and claimed it was the US servicemen who overheard the attacker loading his gun in the toilet.

Well this is the same US military who very definitively won WWII don't forget! What would the rest of the universe do without them heh?! <D
 
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Turning back to the railway side of this, has anyone got any operational details of the incident to hand? Eg. the train was not booked to call at Arras so would have had to been diverted off the LGV-Nord. Presumably the train emergency stopped, then proceeded to Arras (presumably on the basis that the Gendarmerie/CRS had a few resources to deploy there). And how did the rail staff know there weren't more gunmen on the train? To me, the scale of the police response was the remarkable thing based on the TV pictures.
 

30907

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There is a single track connection from the LGV from the North towards Arras, which is a fair sized but not too busy station, so a good place to deal with the incident. The only alternative would have been Lille Europe which doesn't bear thinking about.
 

ainsworth74

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To me, the scale of the police response was the remarkable thing based on the TV pictures.

Well, the French are still on high alert since the attacks this January in and around Paris and I believe they still have several thousand army troops deployed to protect major attractions. So to be honest, once they knew they had something major, I'm not surprised the response was both swift and significant!
 

Groningen

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There is a single track connection from the LGV from the North towards Arras, which is a fair sized but not too busy station, so a good place to deal with the incident. The only alternative would have been Lille Europe which doesn't bear thinking about.

Maybe they already passed Lille. Further; if it went to Lille than the train could also have gone to Lille Flanders. Europe and Flanders are only 300 meters apart. About difference in people: 41.000 Arras and 230.000 Lille.
 
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Which won't happen.

(1) It's just too costly for such cheap tickets, and stations would have to be rebuilt.
(2) Many of these (international) high-speed trains run frequent, at some stretches every 10-15 minutes, making checks take very long.
(3) There are many commuters also using these services, especially Brussels-Paris, as Brussels is cheaper to live in than Paris, and the train to Paris takes less time than a suburban Parisian train into town. And they won't want a daily security check.
(4) You can't use a train as a bomb, like you can use a plane to fly into something. You can just explode/shoot locally, and then they'd just blow themselves up in the queue for the security check, which will be busy.

So the person who would go and suggest this knows nothing about the type of service/users.

That will be Belgian politicians and/or journalists then (no surprise about either knowing nothing)

ID and baggage checks at Thalys check-in (alledgedly)
http://deredactie.be/cm/vrtnieuws.english/News/1.2421295
 

Groningen

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You can get security so extreme as possible, but than in what kind of society are we living in. Than you hand victory to the bad persons. If they are not able to do it in the train, than they do it elsewhere. 100 % security does not exist.

Maybe you already have it in your newspaper. This Arras guy said that he found the weapons in a park in Brussel and want to rob the persons in the train from their belongings, shoot a window of the train and than flea the scene.
 

Bletchleyite

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That will be Belgian politicians and/or journalists then (no surprise about either knowing nothing)

ID and baggage checks at Thalys check-in (alledgedly)
http://deredactie.be/cm/vrtnieuws.english/News/1.2421295

Oh dear. More reasons to fly instead; if you're going to have to do the security thing you might as well take the faster journey offered by air, which is one reason (not the only one) I'm not overly enamoured of E*.

I expect it's a temporary thing, though.
 

eastwestdivide

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An article from yesterday on RTBF at http://www.rtbf.be/info/belgique/de...aleatoires-sur-les-quais-du-thalys?id=9061081
says that as well as increased police presence, the baggage checks are random, not for everyone:
Parallèlement, les bagages des passagers seront également contrôlés, de manière aléatoire.
My translation: In parallel, passengers' luggage will also be checked, at random.

It doesn't say anything about "check-in" as such, as the De Redactie article linked in post 43 says.
 

Quakkerillo

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An article from yesterday on RTBF at http://www.rtbf.be/info/belgique/de...aleatoires-sur-les-quais-du-thalys?id=9061081
says that as well as increased police presence, the baggage checks are random, not for everyone:

My translation: In parallel, passengers' luggage will also be checked, at random.

It doesn't say anything about "check-in" as such, as the De Redactie article linked in post 43 says.

Those familiar with the Brussels Midi station layout will know it's impossible to do a full check-in with luggage checks anyway.
Platforms 3-6 where TGV, ICE, Thalys stop see also local services, and the frequency is too high to be able to check all passengers.
They're most probably opting for the 'not so politically correct' procedure of 'randomly' selecting people based upon 'undisclosed guidelines'.
Furthermore, Thalys and ICE also stop at other stations in Belgium (Ostend, Liège-Guillemins, Namur, Charleroi, Antwerp, Brussels National Airport), and/or come from other countries (Frankfurt, Cologne, Aachen, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Schiphol) where they're not being checked for the moment.
So it does seem a bit pointless to me as well.
 

Groningen

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So another person has locked himself in a toilet going from Amsterdam going south at the station of Rotterdam.
 

Quakkerillo

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To avoid paying, but with paranoia running high...?

Apparently someone with North-African looks jumped on the train right before departure, and locked himself straight in the toilet.
To me it sounded more like a fool without a (valid) ticket, who tried to hitch a cheap ride to Antwerp / Brussels / Paris, but they had to do something I guess.
 

jon0844

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Apparently someone with North-African looks jumped on the train right before departure, and locked himself straight in the toilet.
To me it sounded more like a fool without a (valid) ticket, who tried to hitch a cheap ride to Antwerp / Brussels / Paris, but they had to do something I guess.

Can't wait to hear his story about poor treatment in the Disputes section of RailForums.NL ...
 

Quakkerillo

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Can't wait to hear his story about poor treatment in the Disputes section of RailForums.NL ...

As far as I'm aware, we have 'spoorforum.nl', but that's not nearly as fun/active/interesting as this!
But it looks like this person will have learnt not to travel ticketless a very hard way.
 

radamfi

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As far as I'm aware, we have 'spoorforum.nl', but that's not nearly as fun/active/interesting as this!
But it looks like this person will have learnt not to travel ticketless a very hard way.

What is the biggest Dutch language rail/transport forum? As far as I can tell it is this:

http://www.ovinnederland.nl/

Is there even a demand for such a dedicated sub-forum section for ticketing disputes in the Netherlands?
 

Groningen

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What happened in Rotterdam is still a mystery. Questioning by the police has been slow of the language barrier. And then you know in what direction we must search of the origin of the culprit.
 
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