French trains aren’t slim

If it weren’t such an expensive and large-scale mistake, it would be funny.

The French national railway system has recently taken delivery of new passenger equipment – trouble is, the equipment is about 8 inches too wide in fit the platforms in about 1,300 stations.

More than 300 of the 1800 new cars have been delivered and more than $110 million has already been spent to trim the platforms.

Political leaders from all parties aren’t finding the mistake funny, insisting that taxpayers should not have to pay for station modifications to fix the blunder.

The issue is said to have stemmed from an error in specifications, with the rail network operator using the dimensions of newer stations and not accounting for the width of some of the country’s older platforms.

A similar situation occurred in the USA about 10 years ago.