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In brief: SNCF to test 350+ kph high-speed trains

Posted on October 19, 2008 by Matthieu Desiderio

Today, French high-speed trains ride at a maximum speed of 320 kph… roughly 200 mph. Thinking it could be improved, SNCF, the French national railway company, is now testing its trainsets at speed up to 360 kph! By 2015, SNCF expects that several parts of the French network could have TGV trains running at 360 kph in commercial operation. The main goal is to reduce considerably transit time on future routes, such as Paris to Toulouse, in order to gain market shares against the plane.

On this route Paris to Toulouse through Bordeaux, SNCF only has a 25% marketshare, compared to 75% for the airlines, road being excluded). The reason is because the high-speed rail network stops in Tour, and then TGV trains are riding at a more lower speed (regional train speed, around 200 kph). With a full high-speed rail line on the whole itinerary, transit time could be reduced to 2h55 from 5h00 today at best. This way, SNCF could reverse the market share, reaching 65% to 70%, lowering the airlines’ market share to 30-35%.

Bordeaux-Toulouse at 360kph in 2016

Since the Bordeaux-Toulouse high speed rail track is supposed to enter operation in 2016, it will be built to support either TGV or AGV (the new Alstom very high-speed trainsets) at speeds up to 360 kph. As of today, these high-speeds are still in experimental phase, the actual network being not able to support trainsets running (and especially crossing each others) at such high-speed. Thus, SNCF is working on a test phase with a TGV Duplex trainset to evaluate and calculate the rolling stock’s behaviour.

However, Bordeaux-Toulouse will not be the only link that could welcome 360 kph-high speed trains. A project that might be developped from Paris to Clermont-Ferrand, center of France, might be perfect for such commercial speeds. Until then, passenger trains will continue to ride at 300 or 320 kph because the cost (energy) of increasing speed is still too important compared to the transit time gained. Still… This is not too bad!

References

  • Article: La SNCF teste des TGV roulant à plus de 350 à l’heure, La Tribune.fr, Oct. 14, 2008: here

References from the Transport Information Group

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