Just a day before the start of the Olympics in France, the national railway was paralysed due to designed acts of sabotage. The transportation problems affected 800,00 passengers. Meanwhile, in Poland, a railway company was robbed of 2 modern devices that, if used in bad faith, could stop the entire rail transport in the country.
The start of the Olympics saw hundreds of thousands of tourists and Frenchmen waiting at train stations with no information about the time of arrival for their trains. The cause of the situation was a series of arson that targeted key infrastructure in train communication. The French railway company operating the famous TGV trains informed that their infrastructure faced “a coordinated sabotage”.
The French national railway operator informed that arsonists had damaged signal boxes along the lines connecting Paris with other big cities such as Lille, Bordeaux and Strasbourg.
According to the SNCF (Société nationale des chemins de fer français) head Jean-Pierre Farandou, some 800,000 people were affected by the attack.
Belgium-based international rail operator Eurostar said that train services between London and Paris were disrupted as a result of “vandalism” in France.
„Due to coordinated acts of malice in France, affecting the high speed line between Paris and Lille, all high speed trains going to and coming from Paris are being diverted via the classic line today Friday 26 July. This extends the journey time by around an hour and a half,” Eurostar wrote in a statement.
A month ago Poland faced a suspected activity surrounding the theft of 2 pieces of modern railway communication equipment. Unfortunately, the stolen devices could be used to completely stop rail transport in Poland.
On 15 June a man entered the headquarters of a rail device company in Warsaw. The man managed to leave the building, stealing two pieces of equipment that could trigger a remote Radio-Stop signal that orders to stop any train in the transport system. The device transmits a radio signal that activates the train’s brakes, stopping it regardless of the train crew’s commands.
Such sabotage acts occurred before in the summer of 2023. Then, in the West Pomeranian Voivodeship, a man broadcasted a Radio-Stop signal along with the sound of the Russian national anthem. According to Polish media, there were as many as 775 such attacks in 2023.
“Once plugged into this network via a device such as the one that was stolen, the owner can remotely switch to any radio transmitter on the route. He could, for example, give orders to train drivers in the area or activate the transmission of a Radio-Stop signal,” a train specialist told the Polish website Wirtualna Polska.
Now, because of the incident, the Polish security services and railway companies expect another wave of attacks on its infrastructure.
Photo: X/@therealmindman
Tomasz Modrzejewski
