Users will have to be patient. The high-speed line (LGV) between Paris and Lyon will be closed from Friday 9 (from 11 p.m.) to Wednesday, November 13 (4 a.m.), in order to carry out modernization work. They must allow “the commissioning of 58 new signal stations and a new line control center in Lyon”explains the railway company on its website. This work will mobilize a thousandagents in the field.
Only 30% of TGVs will run compared to a normal weekend along the entire south-east axis, and using the classic line between Paris and Lyon. It will therefore be necessary to plan “a significant increase in travel time”which will be multiplied by two, as the company had already announced in mid-October. During this long weekend, reaching Lyon from the capital will take 4.5 hours instead of 2 hours, a Paris-Marseille trip will last 7.5 hours instead of 3 hours and a Paris-Grenoble 6 hours instead of 3 hours.
Certain services will not be provided, such as “the connection between the South-East and Loire" rel="tag">Pays de la Loire, Brittany, Normandy, Centre-Val-de-Loire and Hauts-de-France”announced SNCF Voyageurs. No Nantes-Lyon, Lyon-Rennes, Le Havre-Marseille or even Lille-Marseille will run from Saturday 9 to Tuesday 12 November inclusive. Trains from Paris to the South-East will stop at Marseille and Toulon and will not serve Nice. The work will also prevent service to six stations on the southeast axis: Le Creusot-Montceau-Montchanin TGV, Mâcon-Loché TGV, Lyon Saint-Exupéry TGV, Valence TGV, Montpellier-Sud-de-France and Nîmes-Pont -du-Gard.
In Occitania, the TGVs will not go further than Montpellier Saint-Roch. This station will be the only one with that of Nîmes-Centre to be served. Travel times will be extended and the number of trains in circulation reduced. There will therefore be no possible journey to Perpignan for example. The TGVs will also not serve the stations of Sète, Agde, Béziers, Narbonne, Perpignan and Carcassonne. And the TGV link between Lyon and Toulouse will also be interrupted.
New Aquitaine will not be spared since the lines linking Bordeaux to Arcachon, Verdon, Agen, Mont-de-Marsan, Hendaye and Pau-Tarbes should be “strongly disturbed”assures France 3 Nouvelle-Aquitaine. Finally, certain international lines will not be served: Paris-Barcelona, Brussels-Marseille and Paris-Milan. The TGV Lyria offer (connections between France and Switzerland) is maintained, but with a reduction in the number of trains.
This high-speed line between Paris and Lyon has undergone five years of work “no impact for travelers”assures the SNCF, but the new stage of renovation requires these days of disruption. SNCF will modernize its entire signaling system on the oldest TGV line, at a total cost of 820 million euros.
“The new system will improve regularity” trains and “to increase the number of trains that will be in circulation on the line”assures France 2 Julien Joly, transport specialist at Wavestone, a consulting firm in management and transformation of companies and organizations. The frequency of trains could increase by 25% by 2030 by allowing the passage of 16 trains per hour and per direction, instead of 13 currently.
