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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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STRIKES

French motorway staff on strike for first holiday weekend of summer

Workers involved in highway péage operation and intervention have called a strike action over the first weekend of the school holidays.

Published: 5 July 2024 16:40 CEST
French motorway staff on strike for first holiday weekend of summer

The CFDT union called on workers on the Autoroutes du Sud (ASF) and Vinci motorway networks to strike from 5pm on Friday until 10pm on Sunday evening on the first weekend of France’s ‘grandes vacances’, when thousands of families are due to set off on holiday, according to France Bleu Vaucluse.

READ ALSO Les Grandes Vacances: France’s 2024 summer holidays

The CFDT has filed a strike notice to “demand systematic recruitment in all sectors, with a particular focus on the toll sector” Fabrice Bergery, union representative of the CFDT ASF, said.

The union said staff who leave ASF employment are not being replaced, with employee levels dropping from 1,300 to 700 in recent years. It has demanded the immediate hiring of seasonal workers to ease pressure on current staff, and for permanent contracts to be advertised whenever staff members leave the company.

“With excessive automation, management does not consider it useful to replace those who retire. Everything is done remotely, intervention times have become much longer to assist the customer or repair equipment,” assures Fabrice Bergery.

And it has condemned a reorganisation of toll services on France’s autoroutes, as jobs across the three Vinci-owned networks are consolidated and centralised. 

The CGT union, meanwhile, has filed a strike notice, extending over the entire summer season, to September 15th.

ASF manages some 2,700 kilometres of France’s autoroutes in the south of the country, including the busy A7 and A9. 

For the most part, motorists will probably not notice any problems as toll booths are automatic. However, unions warned that there may be delays – leading to queues – in case of technical problems with the automated systems.

READ ALSO Travel trouble in store for France on first big summer holiday weekend

Vinci, however, has promised that ‘continuity of service will be ensured across the entire motorway network’.

The ASF manages some 2,700 kilometres of autoroutes in the south of the country, including the busy A7 and A9. Vinci Autoroutes, meanwhile, operates more than 4,400 kilometres of motorways in the west, south-west and south-east of France.

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