Empire Commuter: It can always be worse

Reuters reports that France's renowned rail system is having a problem with bed bugs:

France's national rail company said on Friday it had taken several sleeper carriages out of service to deal with an infestation of bed bugs.

"Some passengers told us they were bitten," an SNCF official said, adding the parasites had been found on a night train going from the Mediterranean city of Nice to eastern Metz last week.

"We took the affected carriages out to treat them."

To prevent capacity problems, SNCF was not taking any new reservations for night trains from Nice to Paris this week. The affected carriages had already been disinfected and services would be back to normal next week, the official said.

Bed bugs were a rare occurrence, she added.

"It's the kind of little animal that unfortunately you'll only notice when they bite. There's no other way to detect them. They are so small."

Of course the Amtrak solution would be the give the passengers enough free booze so they wouldn't notice.

By the way, has anyone else noticed the maniacal little mouse in the Acela Lounge?