Day 4 continued - Back to Lyon, or, the excitement waited for the last day!

The train ride back to Lyon turned into its own adventure, as weather stopped our train by cutting powerlines feeding the electric engine and dropped a tree across the tracks.  After sitting on the train for a couple of hours, watching wind and strong winds beat against the train windows, we were glad to be inside.  Eventually, the rain stopped, and we were directed to exit onto the ground.  Luckily, we were only a couple of hundred yards from a railroad station in the town of Rumilly, and the ground was flat enough for us to push our bikes to the station.  Railroad maintenance crews had appeared, but passengers got very little information as to what our options were.

Roger and Gérard Waiting out the Delay

David and Tom Waiting at the Station in Rumilly

After another hour and a half or so, we were informed that another train would arrive that would transport us to Chambery, a bigger town where we hoped to be able to catch a train for Lyon.  At the very least, there would be hotels where we could stay the night.

After the rescue train arrived, our research told us that we would have about 30 minutes in which to catch the last Lyon train of the evening.  All went reasonably well, although it was a challenge fitting one person and one bike at a time into the elevator to get us access to the correct station platform.  We managed it with 15-20 minutes to spare, but almost as soon as we got ourselves and the bikes on board, station personnel announced that the train was going to leave immediately!  So, we departed Chambery about 20 minutes before we were scheduled to leave.  We guessed that the storm had disarranged crew scheduling such that it was imperative to get to Lyon earlier than originally scheduled.

This part of the trip was without incident, and we finally pulled into Lyon at 10PM – an hour and a half trip had become a six-hour adventure!

Distance for the day - 45 kilometers.

Total for the trip - 215 kilometers.