After three years disrupted by the Covid crisis and its consequences, it is the return of the special Dijon – Lourdes train, on the occasion of the pilgrimage. Sick, hospital, pilgrims, they were nearly 500 to embark, Wednesday August 16, 2023, around 9:30 a.m., on track A. A figure which had not been reached since 2019. After passing through the Laumes station, the train should arrive in Lourdes at 5:40 p.m. The Côte-d’Oriens pilgrimage will last until August 21.
loading
“It’s a standard TGV train, but equipped with stretchers”
“To prepare a pilgrimage to Lourdes, it’s two years in advance. Here we are negotiating the dates of 2025”. Théodore Chevignard, the former director of pilgrimages for the diocese of Dijon, knows his subject: he has been organizing pilgrimages to Lourdes for 25 years. “It’s a completely standard TGV train, but equipped with stretchers inside. The wheelchairs stay outside, we transport people to their places, and they find their wheelchairs in Lourdes, it’s for a question congestion”he describes.
The train finally leaves ten minutes late. A lesser evil for Théodore Chevignard: “It’s always quite complicated to have a train on time and to leave on time. To get a hundred patients on a train, it takes more than a quarter of an hour!”.
Read also
The 15/08/2023
IN PICTURES – More than 20,000 pilgrims gathered in Lourdes to celebrate the Assumption
2023-08-16 14:04:28
#Pilgrimage #Lourdes #pilgrims #departing #Dijon #specially #equipped #train
