The French national rail operator, SNCF, along with two of its subsidiaries and three rail workers are due to appear at the Paris criminal court at the start of a two month trial for their role in the accident involving a high speed TGV train on a test run in 2014 that left 11 people dead and 42 injured.
The SNCF and its subsidiaries Systra and SNCF Réseau are on trial for “injury and involuntary homicide” for the 14 November 2015 accident that killed 11 of the 53 people on board the train and injured everyone else.
The defendants are facing 88 civil parties, including survivors who were not employees, but were on board the train anyway.
The crash occurred near Strasbourg, in eastern France, on what was supposed to be the final test run of the new high-speed line connecting the city with Paris.
The train struck a bridge and derailed, breaking in two as it landed in the Marne-Rhine canal.
Systra, the company responsible for railway tests, is being prosecuted for its decision to try a test speed of 330 kilometres – the train’s upper limit - rather than the 187 kilometre per hour operating speed.
A 2017 investigation that lead to the charges against the defendants concluded the train’s drivers had not received the necessary training to carry out such high-speed tests.
Non-employees on board
The three companies are accused of failing to take precautions to prevent “inappropriate actions of the driving team in terms of braking”.
On board the train were employees as well as their guests, including four children, and one of the questions in the trial is why non-employees were on board.
SNCF and Systra, as the test operators, and the project owner, SNCF Réseau, face fines of up to €225,000 if found guilty in the trial that runs through 16 May.
Two SNCF employees, including the train’s driver, and one Systra employee will also be on trial, facing maximum sentences of three years in prison and fines of up to €45,000 each.
During the investigation, the lawyers for all the defendants suggested that they would be pleading for acquittal.
