Commuters stranded after Paris railway incidents

PARIS (AFP) - Tens of thousands of commuters and travellers on international trains were stranded for hours in Paris on Wednesday after a series of incidents disrupted rail traffic from the capital's Gare du Nord station.

Long-distance Eurostar and Thalys trains to northern France, Britain, Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany were running late for about an hour, with the exception of one Eurostar train that was delayed for three hours.

Suburban trains to regions north and east of Paris were most affected as no trains were running for several hours, causing "a traffic breakdown," Ms Celine Sibert of the regional Transilien Paris-Nord authority told a press briefing.

The state SNCF railway company expected traffic to be back to normal on Thursday.