LGVs due to be opened this coming year

Looking forward to 2017, I thought I would do a blog post covering the LGVs (Lignes à Grande Vitesse) that are due to open during 2017.  As many readers will be aware, France has an absolutely fantastic LGV network.  It contains one of only two lines to recoup its own building costs (Paris-Lyon, the other being Tokyo-Osaka).

They have made several journeys much easier.  For instance, I just adore visiting Reims (silly English people think it is pronounced "raymz", whereas "ranz" would be a better approximation), where French kings tended to be crowned.  Thanks to the LGV Est, it can be reached via an interchange at Marne la Vallée-Chessy or Aeroport Paris-Charles de Gaulle TGV stations and Gare de Champagne-Ardenne TGV station (served by both TER trains and a local tram network).

Our pinko-liberal commie socialist president (who has thankfully announced he isn't standing next year) delayed the construction of several lines, but several of the lines already in construction before he entered office are due to enter service in 2017, in addition to the 2nd phase of the LGV Est that opened earlier this year.  The lines are the LGV Bretagne-Pays de la Loire, the LGV Sud-Europe Atlantique and the Contournement Nîmes Montpellier, which I will briefly discuss in turn.

The LGV Bretagne-Pays de la Loire will go from the LGV Atlantique's current terminus near Le Mans to Rennes, expediting train journeys to various stations in Brittany.  Mireille Guiliano says her husband Edward notes the similarities there with England (not exactly to its credit, but anyway).  Just like Mireille, I love the seafood available in Brittany.  Yes, various fish products can be caught near Marseille, but Brittany has a very long coastline and different fish.  As per custom for new passenger-only lines, the line will open with an initial top speed of 320km/h, electrification of 25kV 50Hz and TVM300 (Transmission-Voie-Machine) and ERTMS Level 2 signalling.  The line will have several links to the conventional lines.  Some examples of journey time reductions are: -

• Paris-Rennes 1h26m (from 2h05m)
• Paris-Nantes 1h52m (from 2h09m)
• Paris-St Malo 2h14m (from 2h54m)
• Paris-Lorient 2h56m (from 3h43m)
• Paris-Brest 3h25m (from 4h18m)

The LGV Sud-Europe Atlantique will go from the line's current terminus near Tours, where through trains are already able to bypass the city.  From there, it will continue to Ambarès-et-Lagrave (twinned with Norton Radstock, possibly the most gormless and rubbish town in the whole of the UK), which is on the outskirts of Bordeaux, the main urban centre in a region known for its fine wines: - I therefore just adore visiting the city, though this line will not do much to expedite journeys there from Marseille (the Bordeaux-Toulouse section of the GPSO will).  The line will have no new stations, but will have links to the existing intermediate stations on the conventional networks in Châtellerault, Poitiers and Angoulême.  The bypass will allow trains not stopping in these places to proceed full speed ahead to Bordeaux.  The line will be useful for people travelling not just to Bordeaux, but it will also appreciably shorten train journeys to Toulouse and Irún (over the border in Spain, plus the intermediate cities).  This will be particularly useful regarding Toulouse, as the air route between Paris-Orly and Toulouse-Blagnac airports is the busiest in Europe.  Paris-Bordeaux journey times will drop from 3h11m (non-stop) to about two hours.  The line will have an initial maximum speed of 320km/h, with the same power and signalling arrangements as the above lines.

The Contournement Nîmes-Montpellier will bypass Nîmes and allow freight traffic to avoid the centre of Montpellier.  It was decided that the existing Montpellier-St. Roch station would not be able to cope with the increased rail traffic, so the decision was made to build Montpellier-Sud de France station (which will unfortunately not have a tram link until 2020).  The line will bypass the centre of Montpellier, but bring Paris-Montpellier journeys down to about three hours.  It will have an initial operating speed of 220km/h, pending a signalling upgrade, which will allow it to be raised to 300km/h.  The reason for the slightly lower speed is the fact that this line is being designed to accommodate freight traffic, which results in a trade-off between gradients, cants and curvatures (curvature sacrificed for the other two parameters).  It will result in journey time reductions of around 20 minutes for journeys between Paris and Montpellier/Barcelona (and other intermediate destinations), though other train routes, such as the Intercité Bordeaux-Marseille may also use the line.  Bilal enjoys travelling by train to Seville to visit his homies and is learning Spanish (he is apparently doing a good job at mimicking hip-hop Spanish).  When the Nîmes-Perpignan gap is closed, it will be high-speed all the way from Marseille to Seville: - the route for the Montpellier-Perpignan section has been decided.  The power supply will be the same, but the initial signalling will be BAL (Bloc Automatique Lumineux) classique and ERTMS, both Level 1.

2017 looks like it will be a good year for high-speed train travel in France.  Spain's high-speed projects have more or less ground to a halt: - I wonder if we might have caught up with them by the end of 2017 in terms of kilometres of high-speed routes?