Europe’s extreme heat wave is disrupting rail travel, causing train delays, cancellations, and infrastructure issues across France, Belgium, the U.K., and beyond.
Europe is in the midst of a record heat wave, and it’s impacting high-speed rail operations.
France recorded its hottest day ever on Tuesday, with the daytime high in some cities reaching 104 F. Paris’s Eiffel Tower and Louvre Museum restricted visiting hours, while schools and other government offices also experienced schedule disruptions.
Also impacted were high-speed train services in many countries on the continent. France cancelled 71 intercity rail services on Monday on account of high temperatures. In many countries, high-speed rail infrastructure, while modern, is still aging. It was also conceived and designed in cooler eras. In France and Belgium, some of the high-speed trainsets are several decades old, and not built for the realities of the hotter summers now commonplace.
In the United Kingdom, passengers were told to avoid rail travel unless necessary. London’s Gatwick Express train suspended some early afternoon express trains between London and Gatwick Airport, although slower local services remained in operation.
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In France and Belgium—which use the same train sets—the air conditioning units in many older train cars will turn off if they get too hot, forcing operators to take them out of service.
Another problem faced by rail systems in hot weather is the tracks themselves. Many of Europe’s high-speed rail networks are electrified, with trains receiving power from overhead electrical wires called catenaries. The heat can cause the wires to expand and droop, blocking rail lines because drooping electrical wires become a snagging hazard for passing trains.
National rail services have also reported out-of-service signals and tracks warped by extreme heat, increasing the risk of derailment. The rail systems all have modern safety backups that alert engineers and system monitors of technical problems—whether the tracks or overhead electric wires are concerned—but having trainsets or portions of rail networks out of service for repairs causes delays, reroutes, and cancellations, inconveniencing customers.
The current heat wave has also been extraordinary in that it has lasted nearly a week without overnight reprieves from the heat, so the amount of time the rail networks have been subject to elevated heat levels has no comparison. Previous heat waves in August 2003 and July 2019 were not as long-lasting.
Europe certainly isn’t the only global region with rail networks affected by hot weather, but its heat-related rail disruptions are unique. The US and Canada don’t have similar high-speed rail networks—most of their trains are diesel-powered. In the U.S., electric catenaries are only used in the high-speed Northeast Corridor. In other hot countries in Africa and Asia, the trains are also diesel-powered, and not the high-speed variety common in Europe.
As heat waves are anticipated to become more common and more intense, rail operators are looking for ways to “heat-proof” their networks. One option is to impose speed limits during hot weather to keep the tracks from overheating, but that would ultimately still cause network delays during heat waves. Another option is to paint the tracks white to reflect and disperse heat, a method that has already been found to be effective in the United Kingdom and Italy.
For now, all rail travelers in Europe can do is check their train schedules before leaving for the station to monitor for delays or cancellations. Travelers planning journeys throughout Europe during the hot summer months can also minimize heat-related disruptions by planning their journeys in the early morning or late evening hours when the weather is cooler, although extended heat-related delays during long heat waves can have knock-on effects across several days.
Elevated temperatures in France are forecast to last through at least the weekend, with Paris expected to reach highs of 101 F on Thursday – some 30 degrees higher than normal for June.