Would love to see a video about the trains and tunnel connection in the alps by the way. And the high-speed rail connections under construction between Italy and France!
@@SaturatedCat depends on what route - and when you book it. the TGV is often cheaper and faster between the biggest cities. I regularly travel to Paris from Lyon and it's always been cheaper by train than flying. not to mention that it takes half the time
Problem we have is that we have everything centralized in Paris (on contrary to Switzerland and Germany for example), with the city not being in the center at all. Therefore, we have a country split in 2 : East and West. We used to have trains running from Lyon to Bordeaux for example, but those have been abandoned due to lack of profitability, which means you need to go through Paris if you wish not to take a plane. Hopefully some private operators will be able to fulfill this lack of supply in 2024. This is of course a "rich" country problem, as many would envy our train network, but our TGV network is great.. if you are a Parisian :)
Finalement le tgv et notre réseau fascinent bien plus les étrangers, que les français qui n’arrêtent pas râler dessus, jamais content…ne se rendent pas compte de la chance d’avoir un tel transport, un tel réseau.
Normal, vu comment le coût du "tout TGV" a plombé la SNCF, au détriment d'autres lignes classique et à la fermeture de dépôts. C'est un peu comme si vous étiez au SMIC et que vous vous achetiez un Ferrari... Tout pour la bagnole, rien pour bouffer. Je ne dis pas que le TGV n'est pas indispensable. Seulement, comme pour les entreprise, on investit puis on attend le retour d'investissement avant de réinvestir et ainsi de suite... plutôt que construire des LGV à tout va "quoi qu'il en coûte", et faire mourir les autres infrastructures. Donc on peut être fier de la réalisation, les étrangers êtres fascinés. Mais comme disait Coluche: "c'est nous qui paye" (au sens propre comme au sens figuré).
13:33 This OuiGo train is the one in Spain. In France they are blue and pink. The white color of Spanish Ouigo is due to the sunlight causing over-heating.
No, it's because in france, OuiGo is the low cost option, and they launched OuiGo in spain as a regular comfort level service, for the same price as france, to crush the local competition. They don't need to crush the local competition in france, as they ARE the local competition.
Thank you! A very,,very good summary. This did not exist when I spent time in France, in the 60s. Even then, I marvelled at the great railway system. They had just started their autoroute system in the same way; segment by segment. I dream of going back to ride the TGV. They say that seniors ride for half price. Vive la France!
@GardenGeek: If you purchase the SNCF senior card (cost 49€, valid one year) you get a 30% reduction on ALL 1st and 2nd class travels on SNCF. Acompanying children (4 to 11) get a 60% reduction. Enjoy your trips in our beautiful country.
Very interesting! However the map at 10:42 isn't of the LGV Est, but the regular old 160km/h Paris Épernay Bar le Duc line. The LGV doesn't run through or near Épernay, it passes up North close to Reims on the other side of the Reims Mountain (it's a large hill / plateau with all the premium champagne vineyards on its sides, not a mountain as we'd understand it).
As a guy living in Toulouse (SW of France) Im so excited to have the LGV line between Bordeaux and Toulouse and also maybe between Toulouse and Montpellier would be important
As a guy who spent 2 years in engineering school in Toulouse (INP-ENSEEIHT) I always hated how slow was the TGV between Toulouse and Bordeaux. Having family in Paris and Lille I very often ended up taking the plane as it was not only faster but also cheaper! The last thing I heard from the Toulouse Bordeaux LGV is that Bordeaux refused to pay the part they were supposed to. Did they finally found an agreement? Anyways I really hope that the LGV finally gets constructed after years and years of discussion. It will make Toulouse a lot more attractive!
@@IIIIIIIIlIIIIIIIIIIIIlIIIIIIl I absolutely don't know about Bordeaux but from what I remember they finally agreed on the construction, though not 100% sure
@@corentinvillereal6975 c'est vrai ? Enfin ! Mon prof disait qu'il en entendait parler quand lui même était élève, de ce projet de LGV et que c'était pour bientôt. Il a aujourd'hui bientôt la soixantaine 😂
Europe was a leader during long time, then joined by Japan. Now, in just 10 years between 2009-2019, China also joined with its technology and is a new leader. The rest of he world lags far behind.
In France, the TGV has not been waiting the LGV lines for go to somes cities. You can take the a TGV Train for go from Toulouse to Bordeaux, but it will take the "normal" speed line, and the same time/price has an Intercités (inter-regions trains by normal lines).
Note that at the beginning, TGV Sud-Est (Paris - Lyon), had initially a max speed of 260 km/h, increased to 270 km/h in 1982 and then to 300 km/h (since 1996 and after) ; this needed to change the gear ratio, new bogies, main transformer cooling and the TVM 300 was upgraded to TVM 430.
TGV network was not exclusive to passengers trafic. For many years cargo train were used for postal service, but those are now over. There is also plans to revive TGV cargo trains for other uses, specially out of CDG airport.
Except Avelia Liberty is unable to run full speed due to track not dedicated to it. Avelia Maximum speed is something like 200 k which is not the definition of high speed ( + 250 km/h) To have a real high speed train Amtrak should build a new line.
@Sahil Singh no maximum speed today is 240 km/h on 54 km only. Avelia Liberty has a maximum speed of 350 km/h but is unable to do it on tracks used also by local and freighter trains much more slower. Like said before to have a real HST Amtrak should built a dedicated track for Avelia but the cost like elsewhere is astronomical.
I must disagree, in my humble opinion the TGV sud-est with the orange livery was the best, both in colour and design. I grew up with pictures of it in my room and even have an electric train set.
@@fb55255 That's because you didn't have to suffer from seeing that color everytime you took a TGV in the 80's. In France many called it "puke orange". It was sadly a very popular color of the late 70's and early 80's. It was horrid, it made me remember all the worst design and style ideas of the era. The blue and metallic colors were way slicker and more stylish. Also, the orange livery only looked ok in bright summer sun. Under a gray or wintery or sunset / sunrise sky it felt like an industrial paint accident 🤣 It may be generational but, for many who experienced the 80's, the orange livery was an eyesore. It had its short moment of glory but aged very very bad very very quickly. I remember in 1990 when people using the Sud-Est line were begging the SNCF for the same livery as on the Atlantique line (blue and metallic grey). Also the interiors of the orange ones were even worse : more shades of orange to brownish orange 🤢🤮 Can't remember which one but a famous Paris haute couture designer said the orange style was awful and dated. And you don't argue with haute couture, they are gods ! 😘 Christian Lacroix designed the first generation of Paris - Est - Europe line's TGV's interiors in 2007 (?). (It's Lacroix sweety darling ! [got the reference?]) The problem with the orange interiors was also that in 89/90 you felt like at the peak of early 70's bad taste. Anyway, tastes and colors are personal but I think there's a huge generational thing to it too. But the gods of fashion and couture have spoken : 70/80's orange has died with the first disco wave, it shall never return !
I grew up mostly in lyon, went to paris only a couple time, but taking the airplane to go there litterally never crossed my mind. just hop on the train and you're there in two hours.
Even the regional/non-TGV trains of France are actually quite fast, way better than what you'd find in a place like the UK for example. The trouble is that until very recently certain parts of the country (like Nice-Marseille) were not equipped with rail for high speed travel and the trains travelled at limited pace over that journey, don't know whether that's changed.
I live near a park that used to be a railway link, and they have photos of one of those experimental gas turbine trains passing by on that line. So cool to see this part of railway history!
Another area for discussion is the financing of LGVs. The most successful (busy) line is the first one; it is unsurprising that the line with biggest potential gets built first. Thereafter it’s a case of diminishing returns and it can be seen now that some new lines will not have enough TGV use to justify an LGV. A few years ago an audit of TGV showed that a big proportion of TGV time is spent driving along classic lines and called for TGV to focus on the LGV sections of a route. Between Marseille and Nice there are now fewer TGVs operating. The projected line between Montpellier and Perpignan is an example with slower speed and mixed use to reduce construction cost and to maximise infrastructure usage.
That's the true. I live in the Netherlands and dreaming of the French construction way to make fast routes (fly overs, dive unders, switches for high speeds and all intercity lines at 200-300 km/h and less stops). To replace te stops the fast trains didn't stop we need other trains to pick this passengers up. For me is France the expert of the world in making the most perfect network in the world. Unfortunately the only routes have had, are the LGV Nord and LGV Est. The thing in noticed in France were the fast raising speed limit at the shunting yard and the high speed stations. Also noticed 25.000 V in Paris (Est). Never seen high tension in a city centre.
At the end of the year the vote on the financing of three new HSL lines will be accepted or not. This concerns the "how" of the financing (probably like the SEA Line half private, half public) and it is for these 3 lines. LGV Occitanie (Bordeaux / Toulouse) LGV PACA (Marseille - Nice) LGV Langedoc (Montpellier - Perpignan) If accepted, start of work in 2023 end in 2026/27 at best. In addition, Marseille want to building an underground passage TGV station (2 platforms 4 lanes), linking two lines, under the current St Charles station which is terminated ... with 10 km of tunnels planned for 160/200 kph.
Another thing that gave inspiration for the TGV was an experimental test track used on the former Paris to Chartres line via Gaillardon, whereby a group of engineers, led by Jean Aubert, created two Aerotrains which ran at magnetic traction and had a rocket alongside their engine, breaking twice the world speed record
No. The engineer who developed the Aérotrain is named Jean Bertin, not Aubert. The experimental test track for the Aérotrain is a 18 km monorail track between Ruan and Saran in the département of Loiret, near Orléans. Chartres and Gaillardon aren't even in this département but in Eure-et-Loir and never had any experimental aérotrain track. The propulsion system of the Aérottrain 02 (speed record version) isn't based on any magnetic or rocket technology, but uses the same principles than hovercrafts with jet engines in lieu of turbopropulsers, used on the Aérotrain 180 version. The electric version is the Aérotrain S44, envisionned for suburban use but unfortunately never tested.
Another great informative vide - Thanks :) One thing - am I right in thinking the some of the stats in the passenger number growth infographic were cumulative and some year on year? If so, maybe good to see those separated.
There are both cumulative and yearly numbers. Currently, the yearly numbers are in the 125 to 150 million passengers. High traffic days there can be well over 500k passengers. And well over 1.2 million on main holiday weekends. Some lines like the one between Paris and Lyon are reaching saturation with trains as close as 3 minutes apart each way. That's the infrastructure's traffic, not the destination to destination traffic as there are multiple entry points and exit points which allow trains to and from different destinations to use the Paris Lyon LGV. Lille > Marseille, Paris > Marseille, Paris Montpellier, and many others run on the Paris > Lyon LGV. That's thanks to the "parallel" model of lines used on the French and Spanish networks : lines are not "serial" like in Germany for example, they use ample bypass tracks to avoid cities along the route and use branches to serve city centers. There's the Paris "LGV Interconnexion Est", which bypasses Paris on the Eastern side and connects LGV's together while running under CDG airport and Disneyland Paris Resort. The LGV Sud-Est continues on a bypass East of Lyon, running under Lyon Saint Exupery airport and ending in a tunnel under Marseille, or passing on the Southern outskirts of Montpellier before ending in a stub ready to be continued. This specificity allows for a very high average speed on the line as nonstop trains never have to slow down to run through cities. This also allows trains to run in parallel instead of being stuck behind each other, which maximizes capacity. Ridership should further increase substantially in the coming years with SNCF receiving its new TGV M's that have a capacity of up to 1480 seats in 400m sets. Which is roughly between 200 and 400 more than today, depending on the type and configuration. Right now, demand far exceeds current capacity. There's even a plan to implement a CBTC centralized remote autopilot system derived from the one called NExTEO which will soon enter service on Paris' RER E line, in order to further increase the line's capacity during rush hour. A couple years ago, SNCF switched to only using double length double deckers on Paris Bordeaux, for example, to try coping with high demand. Paris center TGV stations are another choke point as several are also reaching saturation, especially Paris Gare de Lyon.
8:16 Nope, the part from Petit-Croix (near Belfort) to Lutterbach (near Mulhouse) has not been constructed yet. TGVs are using the conventional line to go to Mulhouse and Basel.
2:35 On a conventional rail system with a wheel train, tho. The Aérotrain 02 reached 422 km/h in 1969 on a monorail structure, and it could have reached a higher speed if the test track has been longer than 18 km.
As a foreigner, while the network seems great it seems that it is a bit too centralized in Paris. I find it weird that you can't take a high-speed train from Lyon directly to Bordeax, for example.
sorry but Lutterbach is a small village in the suburb of Mulhouse, the LGV east stop at Belfort-Montbéliard at the limit of Alsace region, then the TGV go straight to Mulhouse at a normal speed on the regular line
Nowhere, 320kph top currently. But, while the first three lines (Sud-Est, Atlantique, Rhône-Alpes) can’t go over 300kph, all the others are designed for 350kph or more (Nord, Méditerranée, Est européenne, Rhin-Rhône, Sud Europe Atlantique, Bretagne-Pays de la Loire, Nîmes-Montpellier). And so will be future lines like Bordeaux-Toulouse. Not Lyon-Turin though, that will be a 220kph line. TGV trains build since 2006 (Dasye, Euroduplex and the future Horizon) can run at 350kph. Previous generations (Réseau, Duplex…) can run at 320kph. The first generation (Sud-Est), was designed for 270kph but was upgraded to run at 300kph before being retired in 2019. The first LGV, Sud-Est was also designed for 270kph but has also been upgraded to 300kph.
No, what would happen is the TGV would use lgv to tours and then go on conventional tracks to Bordeaux, this is thanks to the interoperability of tgv on lgv and conventional lines. You wouldn't notice, but from tours to Bordeaux you would be on a tgv traveling at sub hsr speeds
It's definitely a part not very clear in the video for people that don't know. The TGVs are serving a lot more stations that the one listes here with a LGV. So even if the end of the journey is not on highspeed line you still have a direct train to your destination without having to do a change.
I was on a TGV once, as a kid in the early 2000s. I forgot everything about the journey except the folding tables in the carriages. Or maybe, I think I never even registered it mentally, I was probably asleep the whole ride.
This is a great video. The TGV program effort was a huge and successful French effort. I’m also glad you mentioned the resulting decline of the domestic Airlines routes. That would help us Americans accept our shoddy train service because it’s doable in America but the American policy is to promote domestic airlines and regional airports. Not trains.
In 1971, highspeed services began in Germany on selected lines and stretches, with speeds up to 125mph. Deutsche Bundesbahn employed their class 103 co´Co´electric loco for use on the first generation of Intercity (IC) trains. 20 years later, the ICE services began with speeds up to 153 mph.
Indeed. There's no explanation of the Y axis, and I did not understand the narration. Are the numbers supposed to represent the numbers of passengers per year? The total cost of the track? The number of hours people have spen on board? Or what?
Europe relies on high speed railways so does the UK. Hopefully when HS2 is completed along with new trains for HS2. Then we all can stop moaning about how the railways really run.
That didn't age well. Considering what position took the parliament nearly a month ago it doesn't seem to be much interest in building high speed rail in the UK. That's a peaty considering the train was invented there it seems bizarre that most trains still run on petrol and are so slow!
Because France is a socialist country, the state invests itself in projects like high speed trains or nuclear electricity considering it does not care about short term profitability In UK no compagny would invest so much money, especially since there are no longer romanian workers to dig due to the brexit
Hi @Railways Explained, no comment on opening the LGVs to the free market in this video? Commercial freedom increasing efficiency and performance blablabla?
It has started albeit very slowly : Italian tgv opérâtes between Paris and Milan, German tgv between paris and Frankfurt. The domestic part of these journeys is available for everyone to buy a ticket for, but clearly it is international competition with domestic element.
They should connect tolouse to montpellier. To have a train from bordeaux to barcelona. Or bordeaux to marseile. Marseile to nice to genoa, would also make my life much easier.
well... the costs of building such network are high and you also should notice the relief in the southern part of the country... the "massif central" make any connection directly from east to west too expensive. They mostly follow the valleys. It just so happen that Paris is well located to serve as a hub for this kind of transport.
@@kolerick There are enough connections that would make sense that do not go through the Massiv Central. The german high speed rail network looks much more like a grid connecting many regional important cities with eachother. This difference very much reflects the different political culture: the German federalistic approach vs the French centralistic, Paris centered approach.
@@harenterberge2632 The Getman Highspeed network is no really efficient in long distances because the rail network is shared by both trains, highspeed, regional and cargo trains with many cities to cross.
If you offer good services to a reasonable cost, peoples are going to use them. This is a wink to our american readers out there that could already be sitting in a bullet train through the states.
Even at 20 million/kilometer, attempting to get anywhere near that in the US (~36 million/mile), is the base cost of most light-rail systems. And that's before we even think about the other things that drive up costs and the various incidentals. New York just completed the first phase of the 2nd avenue subway line, for a total cost of $4.45 billion, yielded 3 new stations and a 1.8 mile (2.9km) tunnel. What an absolute joke. I do realize that this is comparing the cost of high-speed rail to subway, but the cost per kilometer was $1.53 billion. The entire DLR in London was built for that much money. Paris built a full regional metro line for a little bit more. It's not like there isn't political will to do these projects, but, and in particular having lived in New York (thankfully moved out), the amount of absolute corruption and cronyism is mind boggling. Staten Island has been begging for a subway connection for 100 years, and nothing has happened. Instead of improving a line that runs along the East River between the two most populous counties of the city, the mayor wanted to put in a tramway, 600 meters to the west of a subway!!! It would cost more than $3 billion for a 10 mile route of tram tracks or $300 million/mile. That's just robbery at this point.
Urban train networks by their very nature are more expensive to construct. Almost the entire line has to be tunnelled, under existing homes-pipework and offices/roads/canals-rivers etc. Some of this tunnels hits archological sites which must be assessed before they are obliterated. Access to such tunneling and station building is harder-more expensive-longer etc. Hence HSR lines linking cities over "farmland" is cheaper and in theory quicker. As the CA HSR line has shown- farmers are the losers and will fight tooth and nail to retain their main asset - farmland (which complaining about road access quality and accessibility). Unlike home owners - they can move if offered enough money but farmers tend to be less enamoured about being offered land somewhere else. THe issue in the US is as urban sprawl has increased, land to build HSR or any new rail line is made even more scarce and expensive. We want private companies to build and pay for it but we baulk at private firms forcing us to sell land to benefit private profits. It was easier when you just shot some indians and forced them off their lands for free. The US is now akin to only allowing cargo planes to fly once no passenger flight is impeded. ONE metro line under London was to cost just under £15b and will now cost £18.25b - £3.25b more than the estimate - more than 20%+ higher and in the billions not millions. China built their HSR because citizens have no rights. The longer the delay between building major infrastructure, the more expensive it gets - hence the reason to build navy ships regularly.
Currently, we are very excited about building the Grand Paris Express, and it's a 50 billion dollar project to build more urban train lines. Basically nearly doubling the length of the metro system. Strangely, it's faaaar less controversal than in the US x). And yeah, urban train lines cost far more to builf than High Speed Rail. It's generally considered that closing a public transport line for renovation is not possible, so all the crossings, tunnels and bridges have to be redone on its path. Also. The maintenance cost of US suburban cities is soooo high with all this road per citizen, that your cities end up in bankrupt and unable to give decent food in schools, decent libraires, decent roads and decent transit systems.
Being able to cite neighboring countries 5:52 but Switzerland when the first international TGV line was between France and Switzerland is a pretty but massive #fail in the video comment. 🤣
I have recently taken a journey from London to wroclaw,Poland. It starter and finished in the same day. I Think 3 h rule od not valid. While my journey was a bit long and included few changes, if I was to take a plane and include security checks commute to the airport etc plane would only be 4 h faster. Cost at the time was comparable. Comfort, bar the changes is actually much higher. I would love to see more high speed trains across Europe with better connected routes that do not require so many changes. I’m happy that Poland now is cooperating with sncf to develop their high speed rail
SNCF, is “heavily subsidized and deeply indebted.” Although such subsidies and debt are not supposed to exist under European Union rules, and the EU has even ordered member states to open up their railways to competition, SNCF has been particularly resistant to that policy. 2018, president Emmanuel Macron has decided to take on the SNCF unions, whose members receive “more generous benefits than almost any other workers, including a guarantee of early retirement,” says NY Times; led to protests, strikes, cancellation of trains, and walkouts. Clearly, the French model for rail transportation was financially unsustainable, yet workers are unwilling to give up their privileges in order to fix the problems. Currently, SNCF has debts of $55 billion. This doesn’t count at least $8.4 billion worth of debt that the government had previously absorbed into the national debt. Most of this debt came from building high-speed rail lines. The latest data from the European Union say that French trains carry about 9.9 percent of surface passenger travel. While this is up from 9.3 percent in 1990, all of that increase is at the expense of buses, whose share declined from 6.0 to 5.3 percent in the same time period. In other words, all of those tens of billions of dollars did not net a single car off the roads.
"In other words, all of those tens of billions of dollars did not net a single car off the roads." But, according to this video, they did at least net airliners off the sky, at least between Paris and Lyon.
@@seneca983 Which is itself owned by Air France (government-owned and flagged). Basically, it moved from government-owned pocket to another. In the US, there is no government-owned air carrier. As you se, the bureaucracy was involved in LGV deploymwent from the beginning - in the US, AMTRAK has been almost universally attacked since it was created.
The French TGV network works extremely well because there has been a recognition of the need to sink the cost of the essential infrastructure that the LGVs represent. Services however, on the basis of EU laws, are opening to multiple operators, such as the Italian service Paris - Turin, the DB German service Paris - Stuttgart, Paris - Frankfurt, etc. This is the RIGHT MODEL. All models where massive heavy public infrastructure with century long lifecycles are taken on or sold to private operators invariably result in unsustainable service and maintenance levels with lamentable results. This is why passenger rail REALLY sucks in the UK and the US. Is it perfect? Far from it. It HSR a great asset to France? Absolutely.
Note: 4:51 The data shown on the screen is for three months in 1981 and not for 1982. 🚆
Interesting video, love travelling with the TGV: fast, easy and you can get to almost every region in France. Greetings from Belgium!
Would love to see a video about the trains and tunnel connection in the alps by the way. And the high-speed rail connections under construction between Italy and France!
@@SaturatedCat this is the same everywhere, sadly
@@SaturatedCat depends on what route - and when you book it. the TGV is often cheaper and faster between the biggest cities. I regularly travel to Paris from Lyon and it's always been cheaper by train than flying. not to mention that it takes half the time
Problem we have is that we have everything centralized in Paris (on contrary to Switzerland and Germany for example), with the city not being in the center at all. Therefore, we have a country split in 2 : East and West.
We used to have trains running from Lyon to Bordeaux for example, but those have been abandoned due to lack of profitability, which means you need to go through Paris if you wish not to take a plane. Hopefully some private operators will be able to fulfill this lack of supply in 2024.
This is of course a "rich" country problem, as many would envy our train network, but our TGV network is great.. if you are a Parisian :)
@@LaciMk Parisian or a Northerner. Just add one hour to the journey and you can go anywhere from Lille.
The TGV made me very interested in railways since I was a kid
Finalement le tgv et notre réseau fascinent bien plus les étrangers, que les français qui n’arrêtent pas râler dessus, jamais content…ne se rendent pas compte de la chance d’avoir un tel transport, un tel réseau.
Normal, vu comment le coût du "tout TGV" a plombé la SNCF, au détriment d'autres lignes classique et à la fermeture de dépôts. C'est un peu comme si vous étiez au SMIC et que vous vous achetiez un Ferrari... Tout pour la bagnole, rien pour bouffer.
Je ne dis pas que le TGV n'est pas indispensable. Seulement, comme pour les entreprise, on investit puis on attend le retour d'investissement avant de réinvestir et ainsi de suite... plutôt que construire des LGV à tout va "quoi qu'il en coûte", et faire mourir les autres infrastructures.
Donc on peut être fier de la réalisation, les étrangers êtres fascinés. Mais comme disait Coluche: "c'est nous qui paye" (au sens propre comme au sens figuré).
french have been complainging since napaloean
13:33 This OuiGo train is the one in Spain. In France they are blue and pink. The white color of Spanish Ouigo is due to the sunlight causing over-heating.
Overheating??
@@Freshbott2 white doesn't absorb sunlight as much as other colors
@@budisoemantri2303 yeah but what does overheating mean re: a train
No, it's because in france, OuiGo is the low cost option, and they launched OuiGo in spain as a regular comfort level service, for the same price as france, to crush the local competition. They don't need to crush the local competition in france, as they ARE the local competition.
@@ouicertes9764 Spain Ouigo is the same as French Ouigo, it's a low cost
Thank you! A very,,very good summary. This did not exist when I spent time in France, in the 60s. Even then, I marvelled at the great railway system. They had just started their autoroute system in the same way; segment by segment.
I dream of going back to ride the TGV. They say that seniors ride for half price. Vive la France!
@GardenGeek: If you purchase the SNCF senior card (cost 49€, valid one year) you get a 30% reduction on ALL 1st and 2nd class travels on SNCF. Acompanying children (4 to 11) get a 60% reduction. Enjoy your trips in our beautiful country.
Very interesting!
However the map at 10:42 isn't of the LGV Est, but the regular old 160km/h Paris Épernay Bar le Duc line. The LGV doesn't run through or near Épernay, it passes up North close to Reims on the other side of the Reims Mountain (it's a large hill / plateau with all the premium champagne vineyards on its sides, not a mountain as we'd understand it).
As a guy living in Toulouse (SW of France) Im so excited to have the LGV line between Bordeaux and Toulouse and also maybe between Toulouse and Montpellier would be important
As a guy who spent 2 years in engineering school in Toulouse (INP-ENSEEIHT) I always hated how slow was the TGV between Toulouse and Bordeaux. Having family in Paris and Lille I very often ended up taking the plane as it was not only faster but also cheaper!
The last thing I heard from the Toulouse Bordeaux LGV is that Bordeaux refused to pay the part they were supposed to. Did they finally found an agreement?
Anyways I really hope that the LGV finally gets constructed after years and years of discussion. It will make Toulouse a lot more attractive!
@@IIIIIIIIlIIIIIIIIIIIIlIIIIIIl I absolutely don't know about Bordeaux but from what I remember they finally agreed on the construction, though not 100% sure
Okay I just checked and they will probably begin the construction during end 2023
@@corentinvillereal6975 c'est vrai ? Enfin !
Mon prof disait qu'il en entendait parler quand lui même était élève, de ce projet de LGV et que c'était pour bientôt. Il a aujourd'hui bientôt la soixantaine 😂
@@IIIIIIIIlIIIIIIIIIIIIlIIIIIIl Oui oui c'est vrai, mais je ne connais pas la date de mise en service
7:49 hahaha not even going to attempt those words understandably
Good video looking forward to the one on the tunnel that connects Italy to France. Europe seems to excel at these tunnel projects doesn't it.
Europe was a leader during long time, then joined by Japan. Now, in just 10 years between 2009-2019, China also joined with its technology and is a new leader. The rest of he world lags far behind.
In France, the TGV has not been waiting the LGV lines for go to somes cities. You can take the a TGV Train for go from Toulouse to Bordeaux, but it will take the "normal" speed line, and the same time/price has an Intercités (inter-regions trains by normal lines).
Note that at the beginning, TGV Sud-Est (Paris - Lyon), had initially a max speed of 260 km/h, increased to 270 km/h in 1982 and then to 300 km/h (since 1996 and after) ; this needed to change the gear ratio, new bogies, main transformer cooling and the TVM 300 was upgraded to TVM 430.
TGV network was not exclusive to passengers trafic. For many years cargo train were used for postal service, but those are now over.
There is also plans to revive TGV cargo trains for other uses, specially out of CDG airport.
yeah, I remember seeing the yellow postal TGVs
This was a very interesting video! Thanks!
Great channel. Loving it. Thank you. 😃👍
Amtrak finially got something similar to this TGV calls the Avelia Liberty built by Alstom.
Lacks infrastructure does not matter
@Sahil Singh yeah
Except Avelia Liberty is unable to run full speed due to track not dedicated to it. Avelia Maximum speed is something like 200 k which is not the definition of high speed ( + 250 km/h) To have a real high speed train Amtrak should build a new line.
@Sahil Singh no maximum speed today is 240 km/h on 54 km only. Avelia Liberty has a maximum speed of 350 km/h but is unable to do it on tracks used also by local and freighter trains much more slower. Like said before to have a real HST Amtrak should built a dedicated track for Avelia but the cost like elsewhere is astronomical.
Blue tgv has the best exterior design
I must disagree, in my humble opinion the TGV sud-est with the orange livery was the best, both in colour and design. I grew up with pictures of it in my room and even have an electric train set.
@@fb55255 That's because you didn't have to suffer from seeing that color everytime you took a TGV in the 80's.
In France many called it "puke orange". It was sadly a very popular color of the late 70's and early 80's.
It was horrid, it made me remember all the worst design and style ideas of the era.
The blue and metallic colors were way slicker and more stylish.
Also, the orange livery only looked ok in bright summer sun. Under a gray or wintery or sunset / sunrise sky it felt like an industrial paint accident 🤣
It may be generational but, for many who experienced the 80's, the orange livery was an eyesore.
It had its short moment of glory but aged very very bad very very quickly.
I remember in 1990 when people using the Sud-Est line were begging the SNCF for the same livery as on the Atlantique line (blue and metallic grey).
Also the interiors of the orange ones were even worse : more shades of orange to brownish orange 🤢🤮
Can't remember which one but a famous Paris haute couture designer said the orange style was awful and dated. And you don't argue with haute couture, they are gods ! 😘
Christian Lacroix designed the first generation of Paris - Est - Europe line's TGV's interiors in 2007 (?). (It's Lacroix sweety darling ! [got the reference?])
The problem with the orange interiors was also that in 89/90 you felt like at the peak of early 70's bad taste.
Anyway, tastes and colors are personal but I think there's a huge generational thing to it too.
But the gods of fashion and couture have spoken : 70/80's orange has died with the first disco wave, it shall never return !
In Canada when you take the train, you can look out the window and watch all the cars on the highway passing you.
And when you are on a tgv the car are standing still 😂
@@kerrianblot7739 noe, TGV speed is 300 km/h, highway max allowed speed is 130km/h
You pass cars at 170km faster
I grew up mostly in lyon, went to paris only a couple time, but taking the airplane to go there litterally never crossed my mind. just hop on the train and you're there in two hours.
Even the regional/non-TGV trains of France are actually quite fast, way better than what you'd find in a place like the UK for example. The trouble is that until very recently certain parts of the country (like Nice-Marseille) were not equipped with rail for high speed travel and the trains travelled at limited pace over that journey, don't know whether that's changed.
Enjoy the new update very much.
I live near a park that used to be a railway link, and they have photos of one of those experimental gas turbine trains passing by on that line. So cool to see this part of railway history!
Minor mistake: this line only connects the Nord and Sudest, not the Atlantique
Another area for discussion is the financing of LGVs. The most successful (busy) line is the first one; it is unsurprising that the line with biggest potential gets built first. Thereafter it’s a case of diminishing returns and it can be seen now that some new lines will not have enough TGV use to justify an LGV. A few years ago an audit of TGV showed that a big proportion of TGV time is spent driving along classic lines and called for TGV to focus on the LGV sections of a route. Between Marseille and Nice there are now fewer TGVs operating. The projected line between Montpellier and Perpignan is an example with slower speed and mixed use to reduce construction cost and to maximise infrastructure usage.
Love travelling by train
Thanks for the great informative video. I've always been very interested in the French high speed rail network and it is one of the best in the world.
That's the true. I live in the Netherlands and dreaming of the French construction way to make fast routes (fly overs, dive unders, switches for high speeds and all intercity lines at 200-300 km/h and less stops). To replace te stops the fast trains didn't stop we need other trains to pick this passengers up.
For me is France the expert of the world in making the most perfect network in the world. Unfortunately the only routes have had, are the LGV Nord and LGV Est. The thing in noticed in France were the fast raising speed limit at the shunting yard and the high speed stations. Also noticed 25.000 V in Paris (Est). Never seen high tension in a city centre.
Great video, well filmed.👍🎥👍👍👍😊
At the end of the year the vote on the financing of three new HSL lines will be accepted or not. This concerns the "how" of the financing (probably like the SEA Line half private, half public) and it is for these 3 lines.
LGV Occitanie (Bordeaux / Toulouse)
LGV PACA (Marseille - Nice)
LGV Langedoc (Montpellier - Perpignan)
If accepted, start of work in 2023 end in 2026/27 at best.
In addition, Marseille want to building an underground passage TGV station (2 platforms 4 lanes), linking two lines, under the current St Charles station which is terminated ... with 10 km of tunnels planned for 160/200 kph.
Another thing that gave inspiration for the TGV was an experimental test track used on the former Paris to Chartres line via Gaillardon, whereby a group of engineers, led by Jean Aubert, created two Aerotrains which ran at magnetic traction and had a rocket alongside their engine, breaking twice the world speed record
No. The engineer who developed the Aérotrain is named Jean Bertin, not Aubert. The experimental test track for the Aérotrain is a 18 km monorail track between Ruan and Saran in the département of Loiret, near Orléans. Chartres and Gaillardon aren't even in this département but in Eure-et-Loir and never had any experimental aérotrain track.
The propulsion system of the Aérottrain 02 (speed record version) isn't based on any magnetic or rocket technology, but uses the same principles than hovercrafts with jet engines in lieu of turbopropulsers, used on the Aérotrain 180 version. The electric version is the Aérotrain S44, envisionned for suburban use but unfortunately never tested.
Cool info
Love the TGV so much 😍❗
2:10 TGV 001 and 002 have a nickname : Patrick (001) and Sophie (002).
WOW!!! Superb Video! Like 389
Extremely interesting. Too bad we can't do the same on this side of the Atlantic
Another great informative vide - Thanks :) One thing - am I right in thinking the some of the stats in the passenger number growth infographic were cumulative and some year on year? If so, maybe good to see those separated.
There are both cumulative and yearly numbers.
Currently, the yearly numbers are in the 125 to 150 million passengers.
High traffic days there can be well over 500k passengers. And well over 1.2 million on main holiday weekends.
Some lines like the one between Paris and Lyon are reaching saturation with trains as close as 3 minutes apart each way.
That's the infrastructure's traffic, not the destination to destination traffic as there are multiple entry points and exit points which allow trains to and from different destinations to use the Paris Lyon LGV.
Lille > Marseille, Paris > Marseille, Paris Montpellier, and many others run on the Paris > Lyon LGV.
That's thanks to the "parallel" model of lines used on the French and Spanish networks : lines are not "serial" like in Germany for example, they use ample bypass tracks to avoid cities along the route and use branches to serve city centers.
There's the Paris "LGV Interconnexion Est", which bypasses Paris on the Eastern side and connects LGV's together while running under CDG airport and Disneyland Paris Resort.
The LGV Sud-Est continues on a bypass East of Lyon, running under Lyon Saint Exupery airport and ending in a tunnel under Marseille, or passing on the Southern outskirts of Montpellier before ending in a stub ready to be continued.
This specificity allows for a very high average speed on the line as nonstop trains never have to slow down to run through cities.
This also allows trains to run in parallel instead of being stuck behind each other, which maximizes capacity.
Ridership should further increase substantially in the coming years with SNCF receiving its new TGV M's that have a capacity of up to 1480 seats in 400m sets. Which is roughly between 200 and 400 more than today, depending on the type and configuration.
Right now, demand far exceeds current capacity.
There's even a plan to implement a CBTC centralized remote autopilot system derived from the one called NExTEO which will soon enter service on Paris' RER E line, in order to further increase the line's capacity during rush hour.
A couple years ago, SNCF switched to only using double length double deckers on Paris Bordeaux, for example, to try coping with high demand.
Paris center TGV stations are another choke point as several are also reaching saturation, especially Paris Gare de Lyon.
8:16 Nope, the part from Petit-Croix (near Belfort) to Lutterbach (near Mulhouse) has not been constructed yet. TGVs are using the conventional line to go to Mulhouse and Basel.
2:35 On a conventional rail system with a wheel train, tho. The Aérotrain 02 reached 422 km/h in 1969 on a monorail structure, and it could have reached a higher speed if the test track has been longer than 18 km.
Great summary, as usual.
As a foreigner, while the network seems great it seems that it is a bit too centralized in Paris. I find it weird that you can't take a high-speed train from Lyon directly to Bordeax, for example.
12:00 what is the purpose of presenting culminative passenger numbers instead of passengers per year?? I can't really appreciate the growth per year.
Come on man. I work for a very large oil company and I need you to emphasize how terrible this is and Ill flow some money into your patron account
It wont be the longest tunnel as the Brenner Base Tunnel is under construction which will be over 60km long
After Bordeaux to Toulouse is built, just adding Toulouse to Montpellier would make a perfect loop for many alternate routes.
Almost perfect.
I love your accent when u pronounce the french cities
Very good I like this video
Thank you
You forgot the second biggest Railway in Switzerland, BLS
Please make a video about HS2 and Texas Central!
sorry but Lutterbach is a small village in the suburb of Mulhouse, the LGV east stop at Belfort-Montbéliard at the limit of Alsace region, then the TGV go straight to Mulhouse at a normal speed on the regular line
Where does the TGV run 350 km/h?
On newest lines probably
Paris - Strasbourg has a limit of 320km/h. You can find it on openrailwaymap.org
Nowhere, 320kph top currently. But, while the first three lines (Sud-Est, Atlantique, Rhône-Alpes) can’t go over 300kph, all the others are designed for 350kph or more (Nord, Méditerranée, Est européenne, Rhin-Rhône, Sud Europe Atlantique, Bretagne-Pays de la Loire, Nîmes-Montpellier).
And so will be future lines like Bordeaux-Toulouse. Not Lyon-Turin though, that will be a 220kph line.
TGV trains build since 2006 (Dasye, Euroduplex and the future Horizon) can run at 350kph. Previous generations (Réseau, Duplex…) can run at 320kph. The first generation (Sud-Est), was designed for 270kph but was upgraded to run at 300kph before being retired in 2019.
The first LGV, Sud-Est was also designed for 270kph but has also been upgraded to 300kph.
Was there not a LGV to Bordeaux earlier? I remember taking the TGV there in 2007.
No, what would happen is the TGV would use lgv to tours and then go on conventional tracks to Bordeaux, this is thanks to the interoperability of tgv on lgv and conventional lines. You wouldn't notice, but from tours to Bordeaux you would be on a tgv traveling at sub hsr speeds
It's definitely a part not very clear in the video for people that don't know. The TGVs are serving a lot more stations that the one listes here with a LGV. So even if the end of the journey is not on highspeed line you still have a direct train to your destination without having to do a change.
I was on a TGV once, as a kid in the early 2000s. I forgot everything about the journey except the folding tables in the carriages. Or maybe, I think I never even registered it mentally, I was probably asleep the whole ride.
This is a great video. The TGV program effort was a huge and successful French effort. I’m also glad you mentioned the resulting decline of the domestic Airlines routes. That would help us Americans accept our shoddy train service because it’s doable in America but the American policy is to promote domestic airlines and regional airports. Not trains.
In 1971, highspeed services began in Germany on selected lines and stretches, with speeds up to 125mph. Deutsche Bundesbahn employed their class 103 co´Co´electric loco for use on the first generation of Intercity (IC) trains. 20 years later, the ICE services began with speeds up to 153 mph.
There is no "153 mph" in Germany, since Germany has for more than a century, like the whole world except the USA, switched to the metric system
@@jadawin10 UK too uses imperial a lot (unfortunately)
@@oldskoolmusicnostalgiaYes. But the younger generations are increasingly using the metric system...
The 'self-explanatory' graph needs an explanation, please.
Indeed. There's no explanation of the Y axis, and I did not understand the narration. Are the numbers supposed to represent the numbers of passengers per year? The total cost of the track? The number of hours people have spen on board? Or what?
Please do a video explain the evolution of the tgv, not the network :)
Excellent video. New subscriber
Thanks. We will do in near future ☺️
Your pronunciation of French city names is "incroyable".
Europe relies on high speed railways so does the UK. Hopefully when HS2 is completed along with new trains for HS2. Then we all can stop moaning about how the railways really run.
That didn't age well. Considering what position took the parliament nearly a month ago it doesn't seem to be much interest in building high speed rail in the UK. That's a peaty considering the train was invented there it seems bizarre that most trains still run on petrol and are so slow!
Because France is a socialist country, the state invests itself in projects like high speed trains or nuclear electricity considering it does not care about short term profitability
In UK no compagny would invest so much money, especially since there are no longer romanian workers to dig due to the brexit
Do Belgium and/or Spain please!
Commuters are business travellers too!
The problem is that they shutdown many non TGV lines and there is little of no service in the countryside
What about a video on Italian railways?
Will be
Hi @Railways Explained, no comment on opening the LGVs to the free market in this video? Commercial freedom increasing efficiency and performance blablabla?
It has started albeit very slowly : Italian tgv opérâtes between Paris and Milan, German tgv between paris and Frankfurt. The domestic part of these journeys is available for everyone to buy a ticket for, but clearly it is international competition with domestic element.
They should connect tolouse to montpellier. To have a train from bordeaux to barcelona. Or bordeaux to marseile. Marseile to nice to genoa, would also make my life much easier.
So typical for France that the network consists of spoked radiating from Paris and there are no connections between the spokes .
well... the costs of building such network are high and you also should notice the relief in the southern part of the country... the "massif central" make any connection directly from east to west too expensive. They mostly follow the valleys. It just so happen that Paris is well located to serve as a hub for this kind of transport.
@@kolerick There are enough connections that would make sense that do not go through the Massiv Central. The german high speed rail network looks much more like a grid connecting many regional important cities with eachother. This difference very much reflects the different political culture: the German federalistic approach vs the French centralistic, Paris centered approach.
@@harenterberge2632 The Getman Highspeed network is no really efficient in long distances because the rail network is shared by both trains, highspeed, regional and cargo trains with many cities to cross.
@@thierrymilan2039 that is only partially true because there also dedicated high speed lines. It is also not very relevant to the discussion.
@@harenterberge2632 You mean ot very relevant to argue with you. Very comfortable.
Pas mal, non? C'est français.
ALL FUTURE RAIL SHOULD BE HIGH SPEED IF
If you offer good services to a reasonable cost, peoples are going to use them.
This is a wink to our american readers out there that could already be sitting in a bullet train through the states.
quelques turbotrains ont été vendu aux USA...
And the Netherlands to 1:00
Even at 20 million/kilometer, attempting to get anywhere near that in the US (~36 million/mile), is the base cost of most light-rail systems. And that's before we even think about the other things that drive up costs and the various incidentals. New York just completed the first phase of the 2nd avenue subway line, for a total cost of $4.45 billion, yielded 3 new stations and a 1.8 mile (2.9km) tunnel. What an absolute joke. I do realize that this is comparing the cost of high-speed rail to subway, but the cost per kilometer was $1.53 billion. The entire DLR in London was built for that much money. Paris built a full regional metro line for a little bit more. It's not like there isn't political will to do these projects, but, and in particular having lived in New York (thankfully moved out), the amount of absolute corruption and cronyism is mind boggling. Staten Island has been begging for a subway connection for 100 years, and nothing has happened. Instead of improving a line that runs along the East River between the two most populous counties of the city, the mayor wanted to put in a tramway, 600 meters to the west of a subway!!! It would cost more than $3 billion for a 10 mile route of tram tracks or $300 million/mile. That's just robbery at this point.
Urban train networks by their very nature are more expensive to construct. Almost the entire line has to be tunnelled, under existing homes-pipework and offices/roads/canals-rivers etc. Some of this tunnels hits archological sites which must be assessed before they are obliterated. Access to such tunneling and station building is harder-more expensive-longer etc. Hence HSR lines linking cities over "farmland" is cheaper and in theory quicker. As the CA HSR line has shown- farmers are the losers and will fight tooth and nail to retain their main asset - farmland (which complaining about road access quality and accessibility). Unlike home owners - they can move if offered enough money but farmers tend to be less enamoured about being offered land somewhere else. THe issue in the US is as urban sprawl has increased, land to build HSR or any new rail line is made even more scarce and expensive. We want private companies to build and pay for it but we baulk at private firms forcing us to sell land to benefit private profits. It was easier when you just shot some indians and forced them off their lands for free. The US is now akin to only allowing cargo planes to fly once no passenger flight is impeded. ONE metro line under London was to cost just under £15b and will now cost £18.25b - £3.25b more than the estimate - more than 20%+ higher and in the billions not millions. China built their HSR because citizens have no rights. The longer the delay between building major infrastructure, the more expensive it gets - hence the reason to build navy ships regularly.
Currently, we are very excited about building the Grand Paris Express, and it's a 50 billion dollar project to build more urban train lines. Basically nearly doubling the length of the metro system. Strangely, it's faaaar less controversal than in the US x).
And yeah, urban train lines cost far more to builf than High Speed Rail. It's generally considered that closing a public transport line for renovation is not possible, so all the crossings, tunnels and bridges have to be redone on its path.
Also.
The maintenance cost of US suburban cities is soooo high with all this road per citizen, that your cities end up in bankrupt and unable to give decent food in schools, decent libraires, decent roads and decent transit systems.
Wrong spelling: Begginings must become beginnings
The French France 🇫🇷 have more faster trains ever
Being able to cite neighboring countries 5:52 but Switzerland when the first international TGV line was between France and Switzerland is a pretty but massive #fail in the video comment. 🤣
* "Beginnings"
I have recently taken a journey from London to wroclaw,Poland. It starter and finished in the same day. I Think 3 h rule od not valid. While my journey was a bit long and included few changes, if I was to take a plane and include security checks commute to the airport etc plane would only be 4 h faster. Cost at the time was comparable. Comfort, bar the changes is actually much higher. I would love to see more high speed trains across Europe with better connected routes that do not require so many changes. I’m happy that Poland now is cooperating with sncf to develop their high speed rail
Ehst...romanule :))
The best hight speed is in Espana
Fake
french to English is for french no for English I am in France world
understanding no much confused
🐈⬛
SNCF, is “heavily subsidized and deeply indebted.” Although such subsidies and debt are not supposed to exist under European Union rules, and the EU has even ordered member states to open up their railways to competition, SNCF has been particularly resistant to that policy. 2018, president Emmanuel Macron has decided to take on the SNCF unions, whose members receive “more generous benefits than almost any other workers, including a guarantee of early retirement,” says NY Times; led to protests, strikes, cancellation of trains, and walkouts. Clearly, the French model for rail transportation was financially unsustainable, yet workers are unwilling to give up their privileges in order to fix the problems. Currently, SNCF has debts of $55 billion. This doesn’t count at least $8.4 billion worth of debt that the government had previously absorbed into the national debt. Most of this debt came from building high-speed rail lines. The latest data from the European Union say that French trains carry about 9.9 percent of surface passenger travel. While this is up from 9.3 percent in 1990, all of that increase is at the expense of buses, whose share declined from 6.0 to 5.3 percent in the same time period. In other words, all of those tens of billions of dollars did not net a single car off the roads.
French feeder transit systems are a weak link
"In other words, all of those tens of billions of dollars did not net a single car off the roads."
But, according to this video, they did at least net airliners off the sky, at least between Paris and Lyon.
@@seneca983 Which is itself owned by Air France (government-owned and flagged). Basically, it moved from government-owned pocket to another. In the US, there is no government-owned air carrier. As you se, the bureaucracy was involved in LGV deploymwent from the beginning - in the US, AMTRAK has been almost universally attacked since it was created.
@@PGHammer21A yes, and the private train network is a disaster in USA...
The French TGV network works extremely well because there has been a recognition of the need to sink the cost of the essential infrastructure that the LGVs represent. Services however, on the basis of EU laws, are opening to multiple operators, such as the Italian service Paris - Turin, the DB German service Paris - Stuttgart, Paris - Frankfurt, etc. This is the RIGHT MODEL. All models where massive heavy public infrastructure with century long lifecycles are taken on or sold to private operators invariably result in unsustainable service and maintenance levels with lamentable results. This is why passenger rail REALLY sucks in the UK and the US. Is it perfect? Far from it. It HSR a great asset to France? Absolutely.
Ho les gars!! Arrêtez de vous faire passer pour des anglosaxons qui s'intéressent à la France, on n'y crois pas.
Tu dit ça et pourtant il s'intéresse au ligne a grande vitesse en France, et dans le monde ...
Sorry, I have Chinese high speed rail bullet trains! Sleek, smooth, comfortable and fast!
ok but you're limited to 25 km range !