TRACK FAULT BLAMED IN FRENCH TRAIN DERAILMENT

PARIS: A train derailment near Paris that killed six people was caused by a fault in the tracks, France’s state rail company said on Saturday, as the transport minister urged upgrades to aging regional lines.

The SNCF said the erailment on Friday, which also left dozens injured, was caused by a connecting bar that had come loose at a rail switch at the station at Bretigny-sur-Orge, about 25 kilometres south of Paris.

The joint bar “broke away, it became detached and came out of its housing,” said Pierre Izard, the SNCF’s general manager for infrastructure.

It “lodged itself at the centre of the switch, prevented the normal progression of the train’s wheels and seems to have caused the train’s derailment,” he said.

The company said the switch had been checked on July 4 and that it was immediately ordering checks of some 5,000 similar joints on its network.

“We have decided to check equipment of this nature on the entire network and are starting now,” SNCF chief Guillaume Pepy said. Transport minister Frederic Cuvillier said human error was not to blame for the accident, praising the train’s driver who he said “had absolutely extraordinary reflexes,” preventing a collision.