This Would Be a Bit of a Shock!
 

Certainly was! Hard on the driver, as it always is of course but in this case probably even more so.

Well most TGV tracks I've been on are highly fenced off and hard to get into the rights of way - hard to believe it happened when a TV was limping into a station - perhaps a suicide? anyway a tragic story!

Yes, I read about that in today's newspaper. I find it rather amazing that the TGV still goes through some grade crossings, but as a taxpayer, I do understand that a lot of money is involved in creating overpasses and underpasses for every single road.

There is a trail track that goes through the downtown area of a nearby city. The train goes through this area at a speed much less than the TGV but they still have 3-4 deaths a year. Most are intentional but some are just people that have had too much to drink and not paying attention. It is really sad.

No matter, how sad. I feel for his family.

FMT tell us you are OK!

How awful.

I am fine. Unfortunately suicides by train is not uncommon here (maybe the biker was hit by accident) and I've twice been on trains where someone jumped in front of the train.

I was on the metro once when someone jumped in front of the train as it arrived in the station. Naturally, the driver slammed on the brakes, but it was too late. It took almost an hour to evacuate the train, especially since I was in the last car. The 'rescue' squad had to come first and cover the tracks and front of the train with plastic sheets, and all of the passengers had to line up to walk through all of the cars of the train to an exit door that was in the station. Naturally, the station had been completely evacuated in the meantime.

Anytime you hear the announcement (or see the words on a screen) "incident voyageur" in the Paris metro that is the code name for suicides. More often, they are now using the term "accident grave de voyageur" because some people just were not understanding, and this makes it clearer. You can expect a section of the line to be closed for at least two hours when this happens.

When it happens on main SNCF lines, the closure is longer, because they generally have to comb several kilometers of track for, er, 'fragments.'

I believe the term they used on at least one of the trains I was on was "accident de personne". I assumed someone had been hit but the guy next to me explained that was the code language for suicide. It took an hour and 45 minutes for the police to do their work while we all sat on the train in the middle of the woods somewhere. I seem to attract suicides. I hadn't been living in France more than a couple of weeks and one day at the Centre Pompidou as I was walking out the front door I saw people looking up so I did too just in time to see the aftermath of someone jumping off the roof and getting caught up in all the exterior tubes/pipes. Then last year my best friend who lived just a block away ended his own life. Until moving here such things never happened around me. Stay away from me.

Poor train engineer, that has to be hard on them if someone does that on purpose or by accident. StCirq, bookmarking this paper though, very interesting.

French, do you know why your best friend killed himself?
I've had a few friends that did but knew they felt family and life overwhelmed them

FMT, now you tell me !....... ;)

A friend of mine used to work on the maintenance teams of British Rail (such a long time ago) they knew that many train drivers needed a lot of emotional help dealing with the suicides and some had to stop working.

His maintenance teams had similar problems and found removing body parts from the engines was the least attractive part of the job.

On the metro train I was on, the driver made an announcement saying exactly what had happened, and I'm sure that it was contrary to the rulebook. But he must have been in such a state of shock that nobody would hold it against him.

I keep thinking, "Bug on the windhield!" Shudder --------------

Some years ago some Parisian clochards were said to be pushing people into Metro trains upon approach!

And why would a vagrant do that?

White tennis shoes?