Paris:
The suicide of a train driver on duty has caused widespread delays in rail traffic in France, operator SNCF said on Wednesday.
Around 3,000 rail passengers are affected by service delays between Paris and southeastern France that began on Tuesday and extended into Wednesday.
On Tuesday, about 10 high-speed trains (TGV) were delayed by up to five hours after the suicide on Christmas Eve, an unusually busy time for travelers.
Prosecutors in Melun, southeast of Paris, told AFP that the driver appeared to have jumped to his death from a moving train.
His body was later found near the railroad tracks.
According to the police, the train’s automatic emergency procedures were activated because the driver was not operating the controls, causing the train to stop.
An investigation into the circumstances of the death was underway.
SNCF confirmed the driver’s death and said, “He committed suicide while the train was in motion.”
SNCF added that there was no threat to the safety of passengers on the train or to other services in the network.
SNCF said on Wednesday that train services were “gradually resuming” and warned that further delays were possible.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
