A little earlier this morning I had to pop in to the local town 4 kms away to fill a customer's car with fuel. My route runs paralell to the main railway line & as i drve home I saw a flash out of the corner of my eye. It was the overhead power cable on the railway track which, as I watched, parted & a few feet of it dangled down! This is a busy line with the TGV & freight running at regular intervals & the thought of the damage the overhead collector on the train hooking up the cable at speed could do before the train stopped could be expensive or even dangerous. I finished the last KM of my journey & dialed 17. This action was rewarded with a bit of music & an engaged tone! Three times!! To the railway station, then - all locked up! Finally to the Gendarmerie where I managed to get my message across. Satisfied that I had done the good citizen bit I returned home. Now, though, I was worried that I had been mistaken & it was maybe a phone line or normal electric cable which had broken & I would end up being responsible for messing up SNCF's timetable!
There is a lay-by near to the spot where I thought I had seen the break but the road is not really close enough to be able to see detail. Then a TGV came in to view...
As it passed the spot where I thought I saw the break there was no evidence of a problem. What had I done?? Then there were a lot of twangs thumps & bumps as the next kilometer of overhead power lines were ripped from the gantries - the alarm had gone out too late! At least I was not mistaken.
If only Ihad filmed it with my phone but I never thought of it at the time.