Lausanne trains to resume after football fans damage cables

The damage to train lines could cost hundreds of thousands of francs. Keystone / Cyril Zingaro

While trains between Lausanne and Renens are still cancelled or delayed on Tuesday, they will probably be running again without restrictions from Wednesday morning, Swiss Federal Railways (SBB) announced on Tuesday. In the meantime, replacement buses are providing connections.

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Work on the forty or so cables affected at Lausanne station is proceeding at a steady pace and progressing well. Rail traffic between Lausanne and Prilly-Malley could resume normally from Wednesday at the start of service, according to SBB. In the meantime, SBB estimates that passengers should allow for an additional 30 minutes on their usual journey.

On Tuesday, passengers travelling between Geneva and the capital of Vaud will still have to change at Morges or Renens. Special trains are running every 30 minutes in both directions between Renens and Lausanne, without stopping at Prilly-Malley.

Around 30 replacement buses are running non-stop every 15 minutes between Renens and Lausanne. The online timetable has been adjusted accordingly.

Post-match damage

On Sunday evening, after a football match against FC Lausanne-Sport, Servette FC supporters allegedly threw a pyrotechnic device from their special return train, damaging cables used for train switching. Repair work is taking time, between six and eight hours per cable, warned Jane Kenyon, infrastructure specialist at SBB.

The twenty or so workers dispatched to the site have been working around the clock since Sunday evening to repair the cables burned by supporters.

Interviewed on Swiss public radio RTS on Tuesday, Pierre-Antoine Hildbrand, Lausanne councillor in charge of security, believes it is time to rethink the transport of supporters between stadiums.

“SBB considers that it has a legal obligation to organise the transfer of supporters. That is not our interpretation. We believe that the clubs should be responsible for transporting supporters from stadium to stadium,” he said. “It works in hockey. People who use public transport behave in a civilised manner, and that is what we expect from the most dedicated football club supporters.”

The SBB has filed a complaint for this act of vandalism, as it has done in the past for problems involving supporters. However, by their own admission, this rarely leads to prosecution, as it is very difficult to identify the perpetrators. For its part, Servette FC has given assurances that it will cooperate in identifying and punishing the perpetrators.

According to the railway company, this is the first time that an act of vandalism has caused such serious disruption to customers. The final bill will take some time to arrive, as everything will have to be accounted for: the thousands of wires to be reconnected, the technicians’ working hours, but also the replacement buses and shuttles. It could amount to tens of thousands of francs.

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Translated from French by AI/jdp

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