This long weekend, traffic is expected to be busy on certain roads in France. On the rails, it will be almost at a standstill between Paris, Lyon and Marseille. SNCF Réseau has decided to completely close the high-speed line between Paris and Lyon, from November 9 to 12, i.e. from this Saturday morning, due to work.
An extremely rare measure, especially since it is the line most used in France by the SNCF TGVs, and those of its Italian competitor, Trenitalia. Even more so during a long weekend, one of the most popular of the year. “It was, in our opinion, the best time to limit the inconvenience,” replied SNCF Réseau.
“A punch operation” prepared since 2018
Usually, construction sites on the rail network take place at night, to minimize the consequences on train traffic. This time SNCF Réseau, in charge of maintaining the French rails, has decided to carry out a “punch operation”, which it has been preparing since… 2018.
SNCF Voyageurs has already eliminated 30% of its TGVs, while Trenitalia has withdrawn two return trips over the period, compared to five in normal times. The remaining trains will run on the classic line. To reach Lyon from Paris and vice versa, it will take between four and five hours to travel, whereas it usually takes two hours at high speed. Likewise, reaching Marseille from the capital or the other way around, where the TGVs take the same high-speed line, takes more than seven hours, compared to the usual 3.5 hours. A real obstacle course.
Line capacity will be increased by 25%
Exceptional constraints which do not prevent the price of seats from rising and do not seem to discourage travelers wishing to take advantage of the Armistice holiday on Monday, for a change of scenery. On this Wednesday afternoon, a Paris-Lyon or Paris-Marseille round trip costs around 150 euros over the weekend. All trains are even full on Monday, from the Marseille city to the capital.
The project aims to change the signaling and install the more modern European rail traffic management system, called ERTMS. Concretely, “it knows in real time the position and speed of all the trains and directly gives a driver the speed they must respect,” explains SNCF Réseau. It thus makes it possible to reduce the space between two trains. » And therefore to insert more on the line. Thanks to this technical advance, the capacity of the line will be increased by 25%, with sixteen trains per hour in each direction, compared to thirteen today.
During the four days of traffic interruption, 1,000 agents will be mobilized to carry out the work “in record time”. The railway workers will “disconnect then reconnect and test 57,000 wires” which control the 250 switches of the high-speed line. Then twenty-two trains will run in idle mode, at 300 km/h, to test all the installations. Once this last point has been validated, traffic will resume normally.
