A French company paid around 15 billion Euros for a fleet of new trains that turned out to be too wide for the stations they were meant to serve.

The mistake was revealed by French newspaper Le Canard Enchaine.

The paper said the mistake happened when RFF, which operates the country's rail network, gave dimensions to train operator SNCF.

But these measurements were taken from modern stations built since the 1980s, and failed to include older stations where the space between platforms is narrower.

CNN reported SNCF spent 15 billion Euros on the order before realising the mistake.