Slow but sure. New services on France's underutilized railway lines.

[whole diary]

[johnneyw]

Came across this today.  Could it be a model for elsewhere if it can be made to work?

https://www.thelocal.fr/20220126/opinion-frances-slow-train-revolution-may-just-be-the-future-for-travel/

[Bmblbzzz]

Interesting idea.

Restaurants and shops along the route will be invited to prepare local specialities which will be sold during station stops and eaten on board.

What a wonderful idea: French provincial meals on wheels; traiteurs on trains.

Especially this bit. A totally different attitude to travel.

[stuving]

Interesting idea.

Restaurants and shops along the route will be invited to prepare local specialities which will be sold during station stops and eaten on board.

What a wonderful idea: French provincial meals on wheels; traiteurs on trains.

Especially this bit. A totally different attitude to travel.

On whose part? The French - all those millions who charge off down the autoroutes on their holidays,and demonstrate their love of slow travel by sitting in enormous traffic jams?

[Bmblbzzz]

Not the speed. The idea of station stops designed to allow disembarkation, purchase and reboarding. (Normal in some parts of the world but not one I've encountered on European rail.)

[grahame]

Not the speed. The idea of station stops designed to allow disembarkation, purchase and reboarding. (Normal in some parts of the world but not one I've encountered on European rail.)

It used to be common practise at Swindon, and in more recent times at Abergynolwyn.

[broadgage]

Sounds an interesting idea, my main misgiving is the large number of stops proposed, 29 on one route !

I can see the merit of stops in order to enjoy attractions en-route, purchase food and drink, and presumably to travel to/from intermediate stations rather than along the whole line.

29 stops sounds very tedious though. Perhaps fewer might be better ? Maybe run a service with the same origin and destination every day, but varying the intermediate stops on different days.

If we are serious about the climate change emergency, we need to make more use of railways, both fast long distance services as an alternative to air, AND slower or local services as an alternative to leisure trips by car.

[stuving]

That article is a bit misleading, going further than anything Railcoop say. They are not pushing slowness at all, these just aren't TGVs^▸ (Train a Grande Vitesse) - more or less resurrected Corails. And that map of routes is of all the ones they have made access applications for, with no intention of running them all. They want to find out which could be made available, after ART do their technical and revenue abstraction tests. Even then, they are asking for other "friendly" operators to take them on.

[stuving]

This lot have not been making much news for a while, but it now appears they have been trying to find backers with real useful money to spend on stuff - and failing. There is, of course, no substitute, even if you do have some keen volunteers line up. This from Railway Gazette International:

Railcoop on brink of liquidation as financing gap stymies restructuring hope

By Railway Gazette International17 April 2024

FRANCE: Open access co-operative Railcoop is expected to be formally liquidated on April 29, the company President Nicolas Debaisieux has confirmed.

The collapse of the co-operative comes after it was placed into judicial administration on October 16 for a period of up to six months. With this period now expiring, a hearing was held at the administrative court in Cahors on April 15 to begin arranging the formalities for creditors, two weeks ahead of the formal liquidation.

While this would bring to an end the idea of using a co-operative model to launch open access trains such as Railcoop’s planned Lyon – Bordeaux service, Debaisieux believes that the project could still be salvaged through outside investment. Railcoop had been planning to restructure itself into an operating business and an asset management ‘opco’.

The co-operative has been negotiating with investment fund Serena Partners and a rolling stock leasing company with a view to progressing the proposed restructuring. According to Debaisieux, these investors had secured 60% of the €11m required to establish the planned Lyon – Limoges - Bordeaux open access service, but this still left a €3·5m gap in the business plan...

[grahame]

Slow but sure. New services on France's underutilized railway lines.

The subject line struck me when it came up again this morning

From Amiens, 9 platforms (at least) the other day.  For the next three hours - 7 departures and all to different destinations; I had 2 hours to wait for my "connection" - arrived from Lille and onward service to Rouen only running a few times each day.  Another wait there of well over an hour for a train to Dieppe.