Wednesday, September 22, 2021
State railway monopoly ends
France’s new civil railway is putting pressure on it
The French state railway has been relying on high speed with the TGV for years. Small towns are being left behind, cross-connections beyond Paris are being cut, train stations are being closed. A new citizen’s railway now wants to recapture the area for train traffic.
In France, a community railway, organized as a cooperative, is starting up, which wants to connect regions neglected by the state railway SCNCF with its own trains. The Ministry of the Environment in Paris granted the railway company Railcoop the operating license. The basis is the opening of French domestic passenger train traffic to the competition in December 2020. As the first connection, Railcoop would like to offer direct trains again on the cross-connection between Lyon and Bordeaux from June next year, which was discontinued by the SNCF in 2014. Further connections from Thionville to Lyon and from Rennes to Toulouse are already being planned.
“With Railcoop, citizens, railway workers, companies and municipalities are joining forces for the first time to breathe new life into the railways,” said Railcoop Director Nicolas Debaisieux. It is a matter of opposing the retreat of the railway from the surface. In the past ten years, the train has closed 19 percent of its passenger stations in France, a total of 644 stops. Over 1000 kilometers of route have been shut down since 2015. Instead of investing in new high-speed routes, the existing infrastructure must be better used. The railway protects the climate and the environment.
There is also a breath of fresh air from abroad
The railway company, which is organized as a non-profit cooperative, already has 8,278 members, including local authorities, municipalities and financial and technical partners. The aim is to run freight trains as well as passenger trains without public subsidies. The first connection to a transshipment station in Toulouse is due to start in two months.
The accelerated expansion of the high-speed network with around 2700 kilometers has plunged the French railways into deep debt. In the future, the Bordeaux-Toulouse and Montpellier-Perpignan lines are to be expanded for the TGV high-speed trains. But the SNCF is also facing competition from Spain and Italy in cross-border train traffic. Fast connections from Paris to Milan and Barcelona are being planned there.