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Author Topic: Morlaix-Roscoff Line Closed Indefinitely Due To Flooding  (Read 5054 times)
Lee
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« on: June 05, 2018, 10:50:55 »

Not all that far away from me, the Morlaix-Roscoff line is now closed indefinitely due to significant flood damage over recent days - see story and photos at https://www.ouest-france.fr/bretagne/morlaix-29600/en-images-inondations-morlaix-sainte-seve-la-ligne-morlaix-roscoff-ravagee-5803535

As has been mentioned previously on the forum, Morlaix-Roscoff was already perennially towards the top of "Most At Risk" lists before this, and even has its own Save The Train-style campaign - https://www.defense-ligne-ferroviaire-morlaix-roscoff.com/

I'm due to travel on the line on Saturday June 16, so I'll let you know how things are from the sharp end then.
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« Reply #1 on: June 05, 2018, 14:43:47 »

Not all that far away from me, the Morlaix-Roscoff line is now closed indefinitely due to significant flood damage over recent days - see story and photos at https://www.ouest-france.fr/bretagne/morlaix-29600/en-images-inondations-morlaix-sainte-seve-la-ligne-morlaix-roscoff-ravagee-5803535


Zut Alors! C'est en peu Dawlish, n'est pas?
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« Reply #2 on: June 05, 2018, 23:23:17 »

Last time I was in Roscoff they had two services a day to morlaix and a few rail operated bus services.

The sleepers were of questionable quality then!
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Lee
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« Reply #3 on: June 06, 2018, 10:25:55 »

Zut Alors! C'est en peu Dawlish, n'est pas?

Mon Dieu! Oui, l'exemple de Dawlish était aussi la première chose que j'ai pensé.

Last time I was in Roscoff they had two services a day to morlaix and a few rail operated bus services.

The sleepers were of questionable quality then!

And nothing changed much really up until recent events. The service in normal times is as richwarwicker describes - see https://cdn.ter.sncf.com/medias/PDF/bretagne/SNCFBret_HV2018_Web-Ligne23_v2_tcm55-171730_tcm55-172881.pdf

Trains had been running during the strike, but today only the normally-scheduled buses are running, with no replacement of the suspended rail services.

The track and infrastructure, particularly the Penze viaduct, is indeed in a pretty bad state regardless of the recent flooding. The need to renovate the line has been seen as urgent since 2015, when a 40 km/h speed limit was imposed for safety reasons, significantly lengthening the overall journey time. Since then, the local campaigners (see my opening post for details) have been working with the various tiers of government to try and facilitate that renovation, but with a projected 47 million euro price tag, these efforts have so far been unsuccessful.

There are currently around 15 lines in France where the rail service is officially "temporarily suspended" pending infrastructure work, but with no sign of that work happening anytime soon. I hope I'm wrong, but I think there has to be a real danger of Morlaix-Roscoff joining that list, given the background. 
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« Reply #4 on: June 06, 2018, 14:35:36 »

There are currently around 15 lines in France where the rail service is officially "temporarily suspended" pending infrastructure work, but with no sign of that work happening anytime soon. I hope I'm wrong, but I think there has to be a real danger of Morlaix-Roscoff joining that list, given the background. 

They do get round to a lot of them, though. You may remember the line to Saint-Gilles-Croix-de-Vie, which closed for less than a year (but longer than it was meant to) to replace 84 km of track at a cost of 109 M€. Then yesterday there was an announcement that the line from  Beauvais to Le Tréport-Mers via Abancourt (and the participle masquerading as a station at Eu) has just closed for 18 months to be dug up and relaid. Here the cost is 71 M€, though only 6 M€ comes from SNCF (Societe Nationale des Chemins de fer Francais - French National Railways) Réseau - the majority is from the regions. It's about 90 km in all, but I can't find a figure for how much gets rebuilt.

On that basis the Roscoff-Morlaix line at 47 M€ for 26 km looks very expensive. I presume the explanation is "civils".
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Lee
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« Reply #5 on: June 06, 2018, 15:00:37 »

Fair point. I got my list from https://egtre.info/wiki/France_-_General_Information as follows:

Quote
Services which have been or are to be "suspended" but with no sign of reopening (most recent "suspensions" at top)

Abbeville - Eu [- Le Tréport] (27 May 2018; notionally temporary until at least 2023 (or perhaps 2025...) pending relaying work for which no financing is in place)

St.Yrieix-la-Perche - Pompadour - Objat (27 February 2018; unknown duration - condition of track)

Virgule de Sablé-sur-Sarthe: Laval (SEI 75 Auvers) - Sablé-sur-Sarthe (22 January 2018 - until at least September 2018; signalling problems)

Perpignan - Villefranche-Vernet-les-Bains (December 2017; following level crossing accident)

Rodez - Sévérac-le-Château (December 2017; notionally temporary until 2021 pending relaying work for which no financing is in place)

Meyrargues - Pertuis (December 2017; notionally temporary until 2021)

Limoux - Quillan (December 2017; notionally temporary pending relaying work for which no financing is in place)

[Nancy - ] Pont-St.Vincent - Mirecourt - Merrey [- Culmont-Chalindrey] (December 2016; notionally temporary pending relaying work, although Grand Est Région are contributing to renewal works on the Pont St.Vincent - Mirecourt section which should result in resumption of passenger service over that section.)

La Ferté Milon - Fismes (April 2016)

Thionville - Bouzonville (April 2016 - although notionally replaced by bus temporarily, there has been no restoration of train service, which can only be presumed to have been definitively withdrawn)

Volvic - Laqueuille (November 2015)

Boën-sur-Lignon - Thiers (November 2015; unlike Montbrison - Boën-sur-Lignon there is no sign of local government financial support for reopening)

Ascq - Orchies (June 2015; notionally temporary pending work for which no financing is in place)

Laqueuille - Eygurande-Merlines - Ussel (July 2014)

Alès - Bessèges (July 2012; Occitanie région has announced their intention of financing track renewal but with no target date)

In the "tourist/heritage" sector:

Chemins de Fer du Centre-Bretagne (CFCB) operations from Loudéac, over an SNCF (Societe Nationale des Chemins de fer Francais - French National Railways) freight line to Saint-Brieuc which currently sees neither traffic nor maintenance, were suspended from spring 2017 having last operated in October 2016

There is also a list of suspensions which, as with your examples, are likely to have the work done and reopen:

Quote
The following lines are (or are to be) temporarily closed but with good expectations of reopening:

Breil-sur-Roya - Tende [ - Vievola - Limone [IT]] until 28 April 2018 for re-signalling and other works, including rock-slide protection. Reopening delayed - no revised date yet known.

Limoges - Le Dorat until 22 June 2018 for track relaying

Nice - Digne [CF de Provence] no through service until 14 July 2018 for track relaying (closed section and bus replacement move as work progresses)

Thionville - Bettembourg [LU] from 14 July 2018 until 24 August 2018 and also for other shorter periods during 2018

Paris: La Défense - Nation (line RER A) from 28 July until 26 August 2018

Retiers - Châteaubriant until the end of August 2018

Annemasse - La Roche-sur-Foron until December 2018 for track work

Gisors - Serqueux until late 2019 for electrification works

Beauvais - Abancourt - Le Tréport Mers-les-Bains from June 2018 until December 2019

Annemasse - Genève Eaux Vives: the portion within Switzerland is now closed permanently but the section between Annemasse and Chêne-Bourg is forecast to be reopened in spring 2019 - partly diverted, wholly re-engineered, and linked to Genève Cornavin station
 
Charleville-Mézières - Givet for extended periods during summers of 2019, 2020 and 2021 for engineering work
 
Montbrison - Boën-sur-Lignon local government funding for renewal work is expected to lead to reopening in 2019
 
St. Pol-sur-Ternoise - Etaples for work which should be completed during 2020
 
Montréjeau - Luchon for track renewal which should be completed by December 2020
 
[Béthune - ] Fouquereuil - St. Pol-sur-Ternoise from late 2018 for work which should be completed by summer 2021

Arras - St. Pol-sur-Ternoise from late 2019 for work which should be completed by early 2022
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stuving
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« Reply #6 on: June 06, 2018, 15:31:56 »

The money for Abbeville - Eu - Le Tréport was voted in 2016 for the work in 2019, but SNCF (Societe Nationale des Chemins de fer Francais - French National Railways) kept threatening to close the line on safety grounds before that. While this was seen as a bit of extortion by the locals, it looks as if they did agree to this earlier start. But maybe it wasn't all signed off before closure. SNCF can always close the line on safety grounds, and start some of the preparations, after all.
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stuving
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« Reply #7 on: June 12, 2018, 13:05:09 »

I do hope, Lee, that this never-ending sequence of flash flooding, and now river flooding, events has managed to avoid you. The French (or, really, residents) would be justified in thinking someone's got it in for them by now.

The latest "what the ...?" item is the first RERB this morning from the west that found an embankment near Courcelle-sur-Yvette had gone AOL overnight. That's probably all the words you need to accompany the pictures in e.g this report from France £.

« Last Edit: June 13, 2018, 10:50:43 by stuving » Logged
stuving
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« Reply #8 on: June 13, 2018, 10:50:26 »

The latest "what the ...?" item is the first RERB this morning from the west that found an embankment near Courcelle-sur-Yvette had gone AOL overnight. That's probably all the words you need to accompany the pictures in e.g this report from France £.

Just a couple of things to add. There were all of seven passenger, of whom three were injured, none seriously. Well, it was still before 5 am.

The closure only affects the last two stations, for which 25 buses are providing cover - which sounds quite generous for about 5 km. They have chosen to turn trains at Orsay Ville, which has an extra platform and points, and the remaining three stations have a shuttle.

On another operational point, the terminus at Gif-sur-Yvette has three platforms and five sidings. Presumably it houses several trains overnight and these (bar the one that had the accident) are all trapped. That may not matter today, which is a strike day.

Oh, and you may have seen that Paris Saint-Lazare has been totally closed since early this morning due to a complete lack of signalling*. That's been identified as an insulation failure in a piece of equipment made in 1966 - which sounds rather like August last year at Paris Montparnasse.

*PS: SNCF (Societe Nationale des Chemins de fer Francais - French National Railways) actually said the fault they found was one of electrical supply control - I'd have though that was obvious at the start! There was one bay with seven failed (1966 vintage) relays in it; whether the last one was the one relay that rules them all or the relay that broke the camel's back isn't clear.
« Last Edit: June 13, 2018, 12:54:53 by stuving » Logged
Mark A
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« Reply #9 on: September 25, 2021, 09:10:54 »

Not all that far away from me, the Morlaix-Roscoff line is now closed indefinitely due to significant flood damage over recent days - see story and photos at https://www.ouest-france.fr/bretagne/morlaix-29600/en-images-inondations-morlaix-sainte-seve-la-ligne-morlaix-roscoff-ravagee-5803535

As has been mentioned previously on the forum, Morlaix-Roscoff was already perennially towards the top of "Most At Risk" lists before this, and even has its own Save The Train-style campaign - https://www.defense-ligne-ferroviaire-morlaix-roscoff.com/

I'm due to travel on the line on Saturday June 16, so I'll let you know how things are from the sharp end then.

What's the current position with this line please?
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Lee
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« Reply #10 on: September 25, 2021, 10:29:07 »

Not all that far away from me, the Morlaix-Roscoff line is now closed indefinitely due to significant flood damage over recent days - see story and photos at https://www.ouest-france.fr/bretagne/morlaix-29600/en-images-inondations-morlaix-sainte-seve-la-ligne-morlaix-roscoff-ravagee-5803535

As has been mentioned previously on the forum, Morlaix-Roscoff was already perennially towards the top of "Most At Risk" lists before this, and even has its own Save The Train-style campaign - https://www.defense-ligne-ferroviaire-morlaix-roscoff.com/

I'm due to travel on the line on Saturday June 16, so I'll let you know how things are from the sharp end then.

What's the current position with this line please?

I did an update on this a little while ago:

What is the situation at a local/regional level in other parts of France?

I recall serious cutbacks being proposed only a couple of years ago.  Are any lines, services, stations still under threat?

The Spinetta report to which you refer had the Beeching-esque section put on ice after a huge public backlash. However, it is true to say that ever-present danger remains of "Temporary Suspensions" due to ongoing lack of maintenance that turn out to be permanent in many cases. We try and forestall that by ensuring that budgets are properly structured to ensure that backlogs dont occur - Our branch lines will normally have an engineering shutdown for a couple of weeks each year as well so bigger jobs are not neglected. We also have a rolling full line renovation programme, the latest to emerge from which was the Dol-Dinan line.

We do have one "Temporary Suspension" on our network, that of Morlaix-Roscoff. Unfortunately, legacy neglect of maintenance had already seen a hefty funding estimate for a full line renovation before storms/floods washed away part of the line, leading to the current situation. However, it is still shown on our rail publicity maps as part of the rail network, and every funding opportunity is sought and assessed with a view to bringing the line back into service as soon as is practical, this time with a more appropriate Comités De Lignes-designed timetable.
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