The risks of portion working explained

This from the Daily Mail...

Tourists on a sleeper train from Spain to Italy woke up nearly 200 miles off course - after French railway signallers gaffed and sent them to Switzerland.

Technicians split the train as scheduled in the city of Lyon after it arrived from Barcelona in the early hours of Monday.

But they mixed up the carriages bound for Milan in northern Italy with those supposed to go to the Swiss city of Zurich 175 miles away.

Of course a complete surprise that the Frenchies managed to bugger up the services of another country's operator.

UPDATE: This from King Henry...

My correspondent in Crewe has telegraphed this to me:

A nice story from Switzerland, lifted from the Swiss Rail chat group...

"According to an item on the local radio something went wrong when the "Trenhotel" from Barcelona was separated in to its two sections in Lyon last night. The section for Milano was dispatched to Zürich and the Zürich section to Milan!

"When the train arrived in Zurich, it was full of bewildered passengers. The section for Zürich was stopped on its way to Milano on the French - Italian border and diverted back on to the right route, arriving in Zürich three hours late.

"Those travellers that arrived in Zürich by accident were transported to Milano by the SBB."

Embarrassing, but not quite as embarrassing as the night one of my namesakes on a Birmingham express took the wrong turn at Ashendon Junction and headed for the Great Central.