A French express train crashed into a tractor at a level crossing in Baden-Württemberg on Thursday. The railway line between Karlsruhe and Strasbourg was therefore closed at around 4 p.m. The clean-up work was still going on late in the evening. It was unclear when the route would be open to traffic again. There are failures and delays, said Deutsche Bahn. As far as is known, no one was injured in the accident.

According to the police in Offenburg, the tractor was due to a technical problem – on a level crossing at the train station in Kork, a district of Kehl near the German-French border. A TGV, which according to a railway spokesman was traveling from Frankfurt/Main to Marseille, was unable to brake in time and collided with the tractor.

Late in the evening, a railway spokesman reported that technicians from the French railway company SNCF would check whether the TGV was still roadworthy. A truck-mounted crane was supposed to lift the tractor off the railway line. How many passengers were on the express train and how the journey continued for them was still unclear.

Message from the police Information from the railways Tweets from Deutsche Bahn