There were no high-speed international rail services out of Brussels for much of Saturday morning after a Thalys and a TGV train both came to a standstill on the high-speed line between Ruisbroek and Halle (both Flemish Brabant). Ice on the overhead cable that power the trains caused them to stop. With two trains blocking the track no other TGV, Thalys or Eurostar services were able to leave Brussels for France and the UK.
From 8:10am until around 10:50am the section of high-speed rail line between Ruisbroek and Halle was blocked by two trains that had come to a standstill just minutes after having left Brussels South Station. Issues with ice on the overhead cables at Ruisbroek had caused the trains to stop. Around 250 passengers were on board the Thalys train with another 350 passengers aboard the TGV train.
Frédéric Petit of the rail infrastructure management company Infrabel told journalists that “The issues had been caused by ice having formed on the overhead cables which meant that there was no longer a good connection with the trains’ pantographs. This meant that they were unable to be able to carry on their journey”.
Services resumed at around 10:50am and the two trains that had stopped were able to continue their journeys, albeit 2 hours and 40 minutes behind schedule. All 600 passengers waited in their respective trains both of wish had adequate heating.
“We’re now going to investigate how this was able to happen. It has been freezing all week and there haven’t been any major problems during the past few days. So, we need to look into what exactly happened here”, Mr Petit said.