The unexploded 500kg bomb from World War II was found "in the middle of the tracks" overnight during maintenance work carried out in the area of Saint Denis suburb, the national SNCF rail company said, about 2.5km from Gare du Nord.
On Friday morning all traffic to the Gare du Nord train station -- France's busiest railway terminus serving international trains to London and mainland Europe, high-speed and local connections -- was halted as police worked to disable the device.
By Friday afternoon the metre-long bomb had been defused, with rail services expected to finally resume normal operations in the early evening after causing travel chaos in the French capital.
France's transport minister Philippe Tabarot said services from Gare du Nord, which is located in the north of the French capital, would gradually resume from around 6pm Friday.
The defusing operations were "finally over" and went well, Tabarot said, adding that the 500kg bomb "contained 200kg of explosives".
Parts of the Paris ring road and A1 motorway were also closed for a period of time on Friday too, while the bomb was made safe.
READ MORE: Eurostar cancels all trains to and from Paris on Friday after WWII bomb found
Unexploded ordnance is still found across Europe, particularly in Germany where the ground remains riddled with it, 80 years after World War II.
But Matthieu Chabanel, head of rail infrastructure management unit SNCF Reseau, said that finding a bomb of such size was "really quite exceptional.
"We know that during World War II, the rail network was heavily bombed, especially here north of Paris where there were also many factories," he told reporters.
Gare du Nord is one of the busiest train stations in Europe, carrying more than 226 million passengers in 2023, according to SNCF.
Which services were halted?
Trains operating on the Eurostar lines of London-Paris, Paris-London, Brussels-Paris and Paris-Brussels were cancelled all day on Friday, but were scheduled to resume on Saturday.
Meanwhile, the Brussels-Marne La Vallée, London-Brussels and London-Amsterdam trains operated normally.
Those who were set to travel on Eurostar on Friday can either exchange their ticket or request a voucher or refund. You can do so by going to your booking on the Eurostar website. More information also available on the Eurostar travel updates page.
French high-speed TGV services and regional train lines (TERs to northern France) that stop at Gare du Nord station were also disrupted. Local commuter rail services (RERs B, D, H and K) were also affected.
This included the RER B, which connects Paris with Roissy-Charles de Gaulle airport. People heading to the airport had been advised to instead take the Roissy bus, from the Opera station in central Paris.
These domestic services are expected to begin resuming normal operations from Friday evening, though there may be some knock-on delays.
You can keep up with local commuter train updates by following the RER B X account, and for TER (regional trains), there are periodic updates on the Hauts-de-France account too.
For SNCF high-speed TGV services, you can check on via SNCF Connect.
Genevieve Mansfield
Comments (3)