“We are walking on our heads” the railway unions in Dordogne denounce the dismantling of Fret SNCF

Train traffic will be disrupted this Thursday in France with a strike at the SNCF called by several railway unions. In Dordogne, the forecasts announce 6 TER out of 10 which should run, and if you have to go through Bordeaux to take the trains, the traffic is “almost normal”. The unions denounce in particular the dismantling of SNCF freight, the branch responsible for freight transport.

Trains instead of trucks

In Dordogne, there is only one line left, the one which serves the Thiviers quarry, and the quartz quarry of Saint-Jean-de-Côle. “Almost all deliveries are now made by truck, explains Jérôme Jean, CGT Cheminots delegate in Périgueux. That would be more than 10,000 more trucks each year on the department's roads.” He is worried about disappearance of this last connection in Dordogne, which would deprive the SNCF of rail toll rights.

This is money paid for each train passage which can be used to maintenance of tracks or lines. Unions fear a line closure for travelers who could lack financial resources if freight is expected to reduce in the coming months. “When we say that rail transport is expensive because we contrast the road cost, but in the latter, we are not talking about pollution, accidents, the deterioration of the roads which are taken into account by the communities and paid for by the taxpayer.adds Jérôme Jean.

The ecological issue

The other aspect denounced by the unions is based on a choice that it considers “from another time”. For the CGT in Dordogne, if the last freight train line stops, this could mean “thousands of trucks” in addition on the roads of the department for fill the transport gap. “We walk on our heads”chokes up Jérôme Jean, the CGT railway workers delegate. For him, at a time when climate change is increasingly at the heart of our concerns, the dismantling of SNCF freight could cause a lot of pollution.