Macron announces big investment in French railways

[whole diary]

[Lee]

More good news - Association Chemins de fer de Center-Bretagne (CFCB) have concluded an operating and circulation agreement with SNCF^▸ (Societe Nationale des Chemins de fer Francais - French National Railways) Reseau to run tourist trains from Pontivy southwards to Lambel Camors from next summer. These will initially run on Wednesdays and Sundays, which are the 2 days per week that no freight paths are scheduled.

If this is successful, then a joint passenger/freight operating agreement will be sought to expand the number of operating days, and extend towards the junction with the main line at Auray, which is served by TGVs^▸ (Train a Grande Vitesse) to Rennes and Paris, and local trains to Quimper, Lorient and Vannes. The ultimate aim is to have a 7 days a week "national rail" SNCF service from Pontivy-Auray providing all of the above connections, coexisting with freight trains, and with tourist trains that would continue to run in the summer months.

Could something similar work in the UK^▸ (United Kingdom)? Now, there's an idea...

The big day has arrived - Today Pontivy Interchange has opened, and the first tourist train has run:

I visited Pontivy Interchange last Wednesday (22 September 2021) and travelled on the tourist train. Report and pictures can be found here.

The summer operating season is now over, and the tourist trains have been more successful than anyone dare hoped, selling out every single service since the beginning of August. They are now taking a short break before resuming Winter/Santa specials in November, which I am sure will prove just as popular.

Although you obviously cant read everything into the performance of tourist trains, one cannot help but be encouraged as we continue to prepare for eventual full "national rail" reopening between Pontivy-Auray, for which - as I have mentioned on the forum before - the ball is now very much in our court:

Whilst in the UK, the idea of mixing national rail and heritage operations is viewed as radical and controversial, over here in Brittany it is far more commonplace. The Guingamp-Paimpol line has a national rail service during the winter months, and this is mixed with a steam service timetable over part of the route between Pontrieux-Paimpol during the summer months.

Similarly, once the final phase of the Pontivy Reopening Project is complete, there will be a national rail service between Auray-Pontivy during the winter months, mixed with a heritage tourist train operation during the summer months.

What we are waiting for with Pontivy is the completion of the development, construction and deployment of our own battery trains, which will also provide additional services on non-electrified routes such as Guingamp-Carhaix, Guingamp-Paimpol and Saint Brieuc-Dinan-Dol. These additional services cant be provided at present because a) we dont have sufficient spare DMU^▸ (Diesel Multiple Unit) rolling stock and b) even if we did, our budget wouldnt stretch to the level of subsidy that, at least initially, would be required to operate those additional services with them.

Our experts tell us that once operational, our battery trains operating costs would be low enough to break even with just a handful of passengers on board per service, and as broadgage suggests for the WSR, we see them as the way forward for such services to be both economically and environmentally viable into the future.

I had my work hat very much on throughout my visit, and gained a lot of very useful insights. I will in the next few days post in "How Stuff Works" an overview of how our reopening business cases are progressing, and the processes we are going through.

[stuving]

About the revived sleeper trains, French press reports quote transport minister Jean-Baptiste Djebbari as saying the first would be on the Paris-Nice line, and the second would link Paris with the Pyreneen city of Tarbes.

Here's an update on how business is doing on French overnight trains, from IRJ:

Paris - Nice overnight train reaches 80% occupancy
More than 100,000 passengers carried in one year.

May 25, 2022                     Written by David Haydock

FRENCH National Railways’ (SNCF^▸ (Societe Nationale des Chemins de fer Francais - French National Railways)) overnight service between Paris and Nice has carried over 100,000 passengers since it was relaunched on May 20 2021, with funding from a €100m government programme to develop overnight services.

Paris - Nice has the best occupancy rate of SNCF overnight services, rising to above 80% at weekends and during the holidays. One in four overnight passengers choose the Mediterranean as their destination.

SNCF says train occupancy was very good in summer 2021. This trend was confirmed during the autumn and winter, and is now continuing this summer on all SNCF overnight trains.

A programme to upgrade the overnight rolling stock and adapt fleet maintenance facilities for the Paris - Nice route is due to be completed by the end of 2022.

The Nice service route was added to SNCF’s existing network of overnight services from Paris to Toulouse, Rodez/Albi, La Tour-de-Carol/Cerbère and Briançon.

A Paris - Lourdes service was launched at the end of 2021 with government funding. It will be extended to Hendaye to serve the Basque Coast in July and August.

These domestic services were joined with the timetable change on December 12 2021 by a Paris - Vienna Nightjet service operated three nights a week by Austrian Federal Railways (ÖBB) in partnership with SNCF.

[stuving]

Two more night train services from Paris started at the weekend - to Aurillac on Sunday and from Berlin (with Nightjet) yesterday. Like other night trains they offer seats, couchettes, and cabins, (also typically) neither runs every night. The news report I saw of the Aurillac ones - reintroduced after a gap of 20 years - was convinced these trains would be going de-dum de-dum (which sounds very similar in French).

[Mark A]

This Aurillac? Attempting to work out the route...

Mark


https://www.google.com/maps/@44.9280482,2.4003895,10973m/data=!3m1!1e3!5m1!1e2?entry=ttu

[Mark A]

*Finds the route* OK, the Aurillac train will use infrastructure such as this. (The overbridge at the tunnel portal is the same road that crosses the line, hairpin-bend-climbing the valley side...)

Mark

https://www.google.com/maps/@44.9799216,2.0284642,3a,75y,272.68h,83.52t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sdE9boWfjTG6DhC7nvsZ4wQ!2e0!7i16384!8i8192!5m1!1e2?entry=ttu

[stuving]

*Finds the route* OK, the Aurillac train will use infrastructure such as this. (The overbridge at the tunnel portal is the same road that crosses the line, hairpin-bend-climbing the valley side...)

Yes, a bit rustic, isn't it? Of course the minimalist railway line still leads to a proper-sized station in Aurillac.

And the train fits that rustic image - three carriages tacked on the end of the existing night train to Rodez (and Albi on Fridays), where it stays for five hours before its final trundle up to Aurillac. It calls at the major metropolises of Laroquebrou, Bretenoux-Biars and Saint-Denis près Martel.

[Mark A]

Now wondering if a: accompanied bikes would be ok and b: if they are, whether there'd be the same shenanigans imposed as at Edinburgh, where passengers with cycles, when the train is divided, are required to be up and about to transfer them between portions.

Mark

[stuving]

Now wondering if a: accompanied bikes would be ok and b: if they are, whether there'd be the same shenanigans imposed as at Edinburgh, where passengers with cycles, when the train is divided, are required to be up and about to transfer them between portions.

Mark

Somewhere I saw, in a description of the new generation of sleeper stock, that they include space for bicycles. The French services are still using 70s Corail coaches, albeit done up. I imagine the new ones they are ordering are likely to be the same as in Austria etc.

[Mark A]

*Finds the route* OK, the Aurillac train will use infrastructure such as this. (The overbridge at the tunnel portal is the same road that crosses the line, hairpin-bend-climbing the valley side...)

Yes, a bit rustic, isn't it? Of course the minimalist railway line still leads to a proper-sized station in Aurillac.

And the train fits that rustic image - three carriages tacked on the end of the existing night train to Rodez (and Albi on Fridays), where it stays for five hours before its final trundle up to Aurillac. It calls at the major metropolises of Laroquebrou, Bretenoux-Biars and Saint-Denis près Martel.

Ah, Saint-Denis près Martel. Looks like that's now the lower end of the preserved railway the 'Chemin-de-fer touristique du Haute Quercy', which may still offer, as well as travel over an ambitious piece of railway engineering, the experience of being in an open sided carriage behind a small steam loco doing its best in a curved single track tunnel on a steep climb, the loco exhaust somehow being very well behaved and confining itself to the roof of the tunnel. Mostly.

Mark

https://trainduhautquercy.info/the-journey-railway/?lang=en

[stuving]

Ah, Saint-Denis près Martel. Looks like that's now the lower end of the preserved railway the 'Chemin-de-fer touristique du Haute Quercy', which may still offer, as well as travel over an ambitious piece of railway engineering, the experience of being in an open sided carriage behind a small steam loco doing its best in a curved single track tunnel on a steep climb, the loco exhaust somehow being very well behaved and confining itself to the roof of the tunnel. Mostly.

The publicity for the train touristique says it goes to Saint-Denis lès Martel, but only so as to come back again. Historically the commune was Saint-Denis lès Martel, but the station half a mile away was named Saint-Denis près Martel - presumably on the grounds that lès was Occitan not French. So it's hard to say where the train reverses.

This is the upper valley of the Dordogne, and that river has had its turn to flood this week (there's been an awful lot of it about in France for well over a month). I've not heard this area mentioned, but the stream next to Saint-Denis is ominously named la Tourmente.