PASSENGERS, guards and signalling controllers worked together to help an elderly woman who had boarded the wrong TGV from Paris late on a Friday night and was heading 250km in the wrong direction.

The woman had confused the left and right platforms and realised she was on a train to Nancy - and not Reims - when an announcement was made after the train had left.

In tears, she asked the passenger sitting next to her what she could do. A regular traveller on the line, he went to see guards.

They alerted the control room at Pagny-sur-Moselle corrected from earlier version and it was agreed to allow the train to stop exceptionally at Champagne-Ardenne - about 10km from Reims - where they had also arranged for the woman's correct train to make an unplanned stop to pick her up. That Reims-bound TGV had left Gare de l'Est 15 minutes after the first train.

Two SNCF workers were on the platform to help the woman change trains.

Meanwhile, back in the train carriage, another passenger had offered to give the woman accommodation in Nancy for the night if she needed it.

The first passenger told local newspaper Le Républicain Lorrain: "People do not often speak of the SNCF in very good terms. But here, everyone worked to stop these two TGVs for a woman in distress."