Passengers saved as driver jumps to his death from speeding train

When a train driver jumped to his death while travelling at 186kph near Paris, the system’s automatic controls averted disaster.

The TGV “automatic vigilance system” requires constant pressure from the driver on a pedal or handle. Picture; AFP/Getty Images.

More than 400 passengers were on a train travelling at 186kph near Paris on Christmas Eve when the driver opened the door and jumped to his death.

Within 30 seconds, however, the train’s automatic controls averted disaster: they detected the driver’s absence and brought it to a halt near Melun, 40km south of the capital.

Staff on the low-cost Ouigo service from Paris to Saint-Etienne said the train was packed with people heading home for France’s midnight celebrations of Christmas.

Train personnel assumed the driver, who had been locked in his cabin alone, was incapacitated as no contact could be made with him. “We really couldn’t understand what had happened,” one said. “No one imagined the worst,” another told Le Parisien newspaper.

After 15 minutes, a ticket inspector forced open the driver’s door from the outside and found the cabin empty. The driver’s body was eventually discovered by an infra-red drone more than two hours after emergency services began searching the track.

The incident, which happened at 9pm (local time) and paralysed trains for three hours on the north-south network, affecting 10,000 passengers, was ascribed to an act of apparent suicide by Bruno Rejony, the 52-year-old driver.

Philippe Tabarot, the transport minister, praised the protection system that brought the train to a safe stop, adding that Rejony had been suffering from personal problems.

It was the first time in the history of SNCF, the state-owned railway company, that a driver had jumped to his death from a speeding train, Tabarot said.

“The driver wished to end his life in a solitary action. It could have been more serious if he had wanted to derail his train,” the minister added on CNews television.

However, rail unions and opposition MPs reacted angrily to the minister’s “unfounded and shameful statements” about the driver, who was an official with the powerful CGT rail union.

Berenger Cernon, a left-wing MP and rail worker, said: “There was not an ounce of humanity in his remarks.”

Mr Tabarot, who was appointed on Monday, said his words had been misinterpreted and added that the incident “was first of all a human tragedy”.

A retired driver told Le Parisien: “Being a TGV [France’s high-speed rail service] driver is a very lonely career. You see no one all week. You have to be mentally very strong.”

The TGV’s “automatic vigilance system” requires constant pressure on a pedal or handle. If pressure is released, an alarm sounds after about 50 metres. If there is no response from the driver, emergency braking is applied after another 50 metres.

The SNCF said: “The whole family of rail workers is in mourning and is very distressed by this tragedy.” The gendarmerie has opened an investigation alongside the SNCF’s inquiry.

The Times