The recent steady downpour in Luxembourg has caused chaos on the country's railways, and flooding in Bettembourg has forced the Société nationale des chemins de fer luxembourgeois (CFL) to shut down train lines and establish substitute bus links.
On Monday, trains stopped running between Bettembourg and Thionville after the technical room in Bettembourg became flooded and signal installations and switches between the two towns were shut off.
Substitute buses were set up between platform 19 in Luxembourg and Thionville via Hettange-Grande, as well as between Mersch and Ettelbruck after the foundations of a railway signal in Mersch became damaged during the heavy rainfall. Trains between Mersch and Ettelbruck continued to operate, albeit at reduced speed and with delays anticipated.
Railways between Bettembourg and Thionville and Mersch and Ettelbruck were slowly reopened yesterday, with trains forced to take reduced speeds and, in the latter case, on a single channel, due to the poor weather conditions.
However, another downpour on Tuesday created a second wave of floods in Bettembourg and promptly lead to the re-closure of rail traffic between Bettembourg and Thionville. Similarly, no train was running between Bettembourg and Dudelange until 09:00, with no train connection announced between Luxembourg and Rumelange until 08:00.
Although the CFL had announced plans this morning to reopen the Bettembourg-Thionville line at midday, it later stated that this was not possible due to damage in the relay room being worse than the agency had previously estimated. The CFL has therefore implemented several substitute buses from 16:00 between Luxembourg and Thionville and between Bettembourg and Thionville, a service which it announced it would be reinforcing from 16:00.
