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When French strikes end...

...what do the train folks have to do to get ready for travel again? Thinking in particular the Metro lines and I'm assuming the train tracks haven't been maintained in what will likely be a month or more, so do crews have to travel all the tracks to make sure rails/signals/electrics are working? Ticket booths need dusting and cleaning, lol? Ticket machines re-stocked?

I'd assume none of the trains are where they need to be to resume service either?

This may be a very dumb question, but I've never lived anywhere with a transit system so was just curious about what needs to be prepared.

I'd love to email my regular hotel and "check" on the employees. I'm sure it's been awful for commuters.

Posted by
10205 posts

I just saw an article in Le Parisien saying essentially “no you haven’t been imagining it - those are indeed metro trains you’ve seen circulating on supposedly empty lines” for just this reason — to keep things in good shape so it takes less time to get things back up and running whenever the time comes. I didn’t read it all but will take a look to see if it has any good photos or illustrations that would be worth sharing here.

Posted by
10205 posts

https://www.leparisien.fr/info-paris-ile-de-france-oise/transports/greve-a-la-ratp-pourquoi-des-metros-circulent-quand-meme-sur-les-lignes-fermees-28-12-2019-8225373.php

Here’s the article for those who read French

Une rame circule à vide chaque jour et sur chaque ligne « pour éviter les risques de corrosion de la voie », indique la RATP au Parisien.

“One empty train operates each day on each line ‘to avoid the risks of corrosion on the tracks,’ an RATP official indicated to Le Parisien.

Posted by
14741 posts

Oh, that is very interesting! Thanks so much Kim!

Just read it translated in Chrome...I can imagine people thought they were hallucinating when they saw the trains go by on Line 6, lol!

I wondered if there was non-striking staff who could do "deep cleans" on some station areas that are too busy during normal times.

Posted by
1 posts

Thank you for this info! Yesterday, I saw a 6 train running on the closed tracks and was very confused!