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TGV: 9 things you might not know about France’s high-speed rail network

France's high-speed rail network is more than 40 years old, and the TGV trains are much loved both here and abroad - here's a few things you might not know about them.

Published: 17 September 2021 13:52 CEST
Updated: 6 October 2023 16:39 CEST
TGV: 9 things you might not know about France's high-speed rail network
Photo: Loic Venance/AFP

In 1981, President François Mitterrand officially inaugurated the first high-speed rail line connecting Paris and Lyon. A few days later, a bright orange TGV (Train à Grande Vitesse, French for “high-speed train”) raced down the tracks at over 200km/h.

The newest incarnation of the train will be the TGV M, hailed by president Emmanuel Macron as a prime example of “French genius” and set to go into service in early 2025.

READ ALSO Everything you need to know about taking the train in France

The streamlined version of the bullet train promises to carry more passengers – up to 740 passengers from 600 – while using 20 percent less electricity.

It will continue to whizz people between cities at a top speed of 320 km/h, making most door-to-door trips shorter and cheaper than on airplanes.

To celebrate the TGV (which in French is pronounce tay-shay-vay), here are a few fun facts about the super-speedy trains.

 

Patrick  – That’s the name of the first TGV. Built in 1978 and set into action in 1981 on the Paris-Lyon line, the bright orange Patrick travelled some 13.5 million kilometres before taking his well-earned retirement in 2020. 

574.8 km/h – That’s the world rail speed record, held by the Alstom V150 TGV. Although Japan’s superconductor-powered Maglev (magnetic levitation) trains travel faster – with a record of 603 km/h – they technically don’t run on rails.

3 – That’s how many times the TGV has set the world rail speed record: in 1981 (380 km/h), 1990 (515.3 km/h) and 2007 (574.8 km/h). 

2,734 km – That’s the total length of France’s high-speed rail network, with even more lines set to be constructed in the future. This means France has the fourth-longest high-speed rail network in the world, behind China, Spain, and Japan. 

0 – That’s how many passengers sit aboard the IRIS 320, which travels some 1,500 km every day. Laden with cameras and scanners, this 200-metre-long TGV rapidly inspects the state of the TGV’s train lines in order to ensure travellers’ safety and security.

€7 – That’s how much it costs to take a small pet – including a snail – on the TGV. Animals, even tiny ones, need their own tickets. In 2008 a TGV passenger fined for carrying live snails in his luggage without a ticket for his animals, although the fine was later waived after the story received national attention.

240 – That’s the number of stations served by the TGV network. 183 of these stations can be found in France. The others are located in Germany, Belgium, Spain, Italy, Luxembourg, Monaco, the Netherlands, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. 

300,000 – That’s the average number of passengers who travel by TGV each day, divided among 750 trains. 

1947 – the last year without a single recorded strike on the rail network in France. And that doesn’t necessarily mean that pre-1947 was a golden age of industrial relations – just that SNCF’s records are incomplete before then.

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LIVING IN FRANCE

Explained: What to do if you leave your belongings on a train in France

Here's a look at the steps you should take if you discover that you have left an important or treasured item on a French train.

Published: 3 July 2024 14:59 CEST
Explained: What to do if you leave your belongings on a train in France

We’ve all done it. You get home, or to your hotel or office to realise that, when you got off the train, you forgot to pick up your wallet, laptop, or tablet or sometimes even items of luggage.

Or – every parent’s nightmare – one of your children has left behind their beloved cuddly toy, and only realises as the train you’ve just got off leaves the station.

The good news is that all is not, necessarily, lost. 

The first step is to report the missing item to SNCF. You can do this at the station, but if you’ve got home before you realise something is missing, you can report lost property online (you can change the language of the website).

You will need to describe what you’ve lost, when you lost it, and which train you were travelling on – as well as giving your contact details. 

What happens next

First of all, you will be given a declaration number. Keep it safe – it allows you to track the progress of SNCF’s search for your lost property.

Even so – we have to be honest – the investigation relies a fair bit on good fortune. If your lost property is found on the train by a member of staff, or handed in at a station, then there’s a good chance you’ll get it back. 

It may be that your lost property has already been handed in. If so, it will be registered on SNCF’s national lost property database and kept for 30 days at the station where the item was picked up or, for items forgotten on a train, at the station where they arrived.

Deadline

The database is monitored in real-time matching found items with reports of lost property. When your property has been located, you will be informed, and can go to the station where it is stored, or have it sent to your home address, subject to a shipping charge.

If you do collect it from the station, take along proof of ID – and expect to pay a fee of up to €10, depending on the value of the property you have reported missing.

And, after 30 days?

If items of lost property are not claimed after 30 days, it may be handed over to the government’s Administration des domaines, sold to a charitable organisation or destroyed.

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