Travelers looking to go from Paris to London this week found themselves delayed by an unlikely piece of history: an unexploded bomb from World War II that’s temporary halted trains between the two cities. As Jordan Waller reports for The Points Guy, the discovery of the bomb led to a pause in trains running between London’s St Pancras International and Paris’s Gare du Nord.
“If your train has been cancelled, please change your journey for a different date of travel or claim a refund,” train operator Eurostar said in an announcement on its website. “We’re very sorry for the disruption to your journey and the inconvenience caused.”
According to reporting from the BBC, service will resume on the affected routes on Saturday. Trains weren’t the only form of transportation affected by the discovery of the bomb; France’s A1 autoroute was also closed for reasons of safety.
While it’s been more than half a century since the end of World War II, unexploded bombs turning up is not a shocking event. “It doesn’t happen every day, but it happens,” Fabien Villedieu, a leader of the French train union Sud-Rail, told The New York Times.
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Could this be the future of rail travel?Delays to trains and automobiles aren’t the only effects of historical bombs like this being discovered. In 2022, several construction workers in Germany were hospitalized after being exposed to a phosphorous bomb from the same conflict. There’s something a little metaphorical about the remnants of one war continuing to disrupt the present — but in this case, it’s also very literal.
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