An employee in front of a renovated TER wagon on an assembly line in Bischheim, May 26, 2023 in Bas-Rhin (AFP / PATRICK HERTZOG)
“We strip the train completely bare, rebuild it and give it a second life.” The SNCF has embarked on a vast program of renovation of the TER, a market of more than 2 billion euros which will occupy it for ten years.
“It’s a major fairing operation”, explains Christophe Fanichet, CEO of SNCF Voyageurs.
“After about twenty years, the trains are refurbished, and we will give them another twenty years of life.”
With all modern comforts, sockets, wifi, new seats, places for bicycles, information screens… Security equipment has been reviewed, and cameras have been installed everywhere.
Christophe Fanichet, CEO of SNCF Voyageurs, aboard a renovated TER wagon on an assembly line in Bischheim, May 26, 2023 in Bas-Rhin (AFP / PATRICK HERTZOG)
SNCF Voyageurs has identified 931 regional trains that must be renovated at mid-life in ten years. These are “AGC” — railcars produced at the time by Bombardier, put into service between 2004 and 2011 — and “TER 2N NG” — double-deck trains delivered by Alstom between 2004 and 2011– which make up 40% of the total TER fleet.
These TERs do not belong to it: the regions own them. The public company only operates them, still a monopoly to this day, and the regions, for the moment, prefer to pay it to refurbish them.
“Today, all the regions have entrusted us with the renovation of their trains” as well as the Luxembourg Railways (CFL), rejoices Xavier Ouin, industrial director at SNCF Voyageurs. By negotiating directly with its services, over the counter. “This is the first time that we have had a program of such magnitude.”
A renovated TER wagon on an assembly line in Bischheim, May 26, 2023 in Bas-Rhin (AFP / PATRICK HERTZOG)
The regions have signed commitments for 2.1 billion euros to renovate their TERs, out of a potential estimated at 3 billion. The operation costs 3 million euros per train, three times less than for new trains.
A market that is attracting the interest of companies that manufactured the trains themselves, such as Bombardier (before its takeover by Alstom), Alstom, CAF… “The manufacturers went knocking on each other’s doors”, notes Xavier Ouin.
– “Railway clinic” –
The equipment department responsible for it would be a big company if it were independent, with some 8,400 employees and an annual turnover of more than 1.5 billion euros.
A renovated TER train on an assembly line in Bischheim, May 26, 2023 in Bas-Rhin (AFP / PATRICK HERTZOG)
“We often see SNCF Voyageurs as a service company. But it is first and foremost an industrial company, to be able to provide service”, Mr. Fanichet likes to point out.
The company relies on ten “industrial technicentres” spread throughout the country, which deal with heavy operations.
Each time, the process is the same: the train is completely stripped, the parts cleaned and repaired if necessary, the body is treated against corrosion, the seals restored, the liveries repainted, the traction chain checked and the interior fittings redone. up to date.
The Bischheim technicentre, in the suburbs of Strasbourg, is familiar with these makeovers, since it has long been dealing with mid-life TGVs, refreshed or transformed into Ouigo.
The “SNCF Voyageurs” logo on a renovated TER in Bischheim, May 26, 2023 in Bas-Rhin (AFP / PATRICK HERTZOG)
This “railway clinic” – according to its director Alain Praxmarer – now supports a good part of the TER of the Grand Est.
The venerable site, whose oldest buildings date back to the German period in 1879, is undergoing renovation, in order to rationalize the chains. The aim is to reduce train crossing times by 30% and production costs by 20%. The trains, which travel 15 km from one workshop to another, will see their journey reduced to 3 km.
Train enthusiasts will notice that the rails have disappeared from the workshops: the cars are now transported inside the technicentre thanks to “movers”, large remote-controlled carts capable of moving loads of 60 tonnes.
The Alsatian technicentre, which employs 770 agents and around sixty work-study students, is recruiting 160 additional people.
A renovated TER wagon on an assembly line in Bischheim, May 26, 2023 in Bas-Rhin (AFP / PATRICK HERTZOG)
“What we wanted by entrusting our TER to the SNCF, was that the investment would also be useful to the territory, and useful to the development of this technicentre”, testifies Thibaud Philipps, the vice-president of the regional council in charge of transport. .
“The region gets its money’s worth,” he said.
Beyond the TER renovation program which will occupy it until 2031, SNCF Voyageurs is already interested in the following generations of equipment, delivered in the 2010s.
© 2023 AFP
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