Update: - third baby born

Apologies to my readers for the lack of updates.  Our third son was born a couple of months ago and I have been distracted from this blog by the various things to do at home and work.  Mireille Guiliano has explained how French women are good at making choices.  In her case, she chose not to have children in favour of having a career.  Later, she chose retirement and writing over her role as CEO of Veuve-Cliquot.  In my case, I wanted to continue expanding the reach of my magazine and my family, meaning that my blogging about how wonderful French women are has taken a back seat.  This is not to say that I will never write any more blog posts though: - I am hoping to write some more when I have some more spare time and creative energies.

I don't tend to write much about family matters.  Bilal was never a controlling man, but he is a very private man, so out of kindness to him, I run topics that concern him or our children by him before I write them.  He is happy for me to talk about our fast-growing family, as he is very proud to have had a third son so quickly: - he is very much a man who is still in his prime.  Let's just say he is not slowing down!  He is also happy for me to talk about him being hip-hop.  However, he jealousy guards our sons' privacy and wants this to continue until they are old enough to decide for themselves how much of their lives they want to expose in public.  Therefore, all I will say about our third son is that mother and baby are both doing well, plus the father and the older two sons.

I have various things to say regarding news articles.  For instance, the LGV Nîmes-Montpellier will open to passenger traffic on the 8th of July (it opened to freight traffic in December 2017), with Montpellier's Sud de France station also entering service that day.  However, Bilal is disappointed with the fact that in the interim, it will not speed up his train journeys to visit his homies in Seville: - he loves to take our sons on the train to Seville to visit his homies (I come along when I am able).  Only a few passenger trains (not tending to cover this route) will use the station each day in the interim.  This is because it is not possible to use the new line to serve Nîmes until Nîmes-Pont de Gard station is complete.  Also, the current lack of an extension of Line 1 of Montpellier's trams to Sud de France station limits the station's usefulness.

Also, there are the French railway reforms that were recently passed.  Reforms of SNCF are badly overdue: - its workers are all too often unionised and entitled, causing the organisation to be bloated.  I am hopeful that the reforms will lead to lower taxpayer subsidies and lower ticket prices.  However, the main problem with Emmanuel Macron's ways of doing things regarding railways is his lack of enthusiasm for building new LGV routes.  François Hollande pushed back the LGV Montpellier-Perpignan and his successor looks set to push it back even further: - this route will also reduce the train time to Seville for Bilal.

There was the famous incident of Mamadou Gassama, the Malian immigrant who climbed up a few flights on the outside of an apartment block to save a baby boy in danger of falling.  There is no doubt that this man's actions saved this boy from extreme danger, though from rumours I have heard, it pales in comparison to some of the things Bilal did while growing up in La Savine.  I mentioned in a previous post that he saved a child in danger of drowning: - if the rumours are correct, this was among the tamer examples of things he has done.  Still, Bilal and Mamadou Gassama put many native-born Frenchmen to shame in terms of what they will do to protect the vulnerable.

Loads of things to catch up on, but hopefully, I will write some more posts when I have time!

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?

Quasi-indefinite delays with high-speed lines

Lately, I was disturbed to hear about how our useless president François Hollande has messed up the economy and therefore made the decision to delay more or less indefinitely (construction not starting until beyond 2030, apparently) the construction of various high-speed lines.

The main ones affected are the new line to Lyon via Orléans and the two gaps leading to the Spanish border.  When the Nîmes-Montpellier bypass and the Tours-Bordeaux lines have been completed, there will still be gaps between Bordeaux and the Atlantic Spanish border (Hendaye and Irún) and Montpellier and Perpignan (there is already an international mixed high-speed/freight line that starts just after Perpignan).

I liked Nicolas Sarkozy, as he was committed to encouraging enterprise, reducing burdensome regulations on employers and reducing taxes for successful people like me (ooooh, how American I sound, lol).  He also celebrated success and isn't trying to puncture people's dreams.  As icing on the cake, he set in motion plans for a massive increase in the rate at which high-speed railway lines are built in France: - I particularly remember that under him, the design studies for the Montpellier-Perpignan connection were accelerated.

To be fair on François Hollande, the Bordeaux-Toulouse high-speed connection has been retained, but this is of little use to me personally unless I happen to be travelling there from Paris, rather than Marseille.

As for me personally, it seems a shame for SNCF to sign contracts for rolling stock that is easily able to run at 320km/h in service and for our president to then mess up the economy and delay the construction of high-speed lines as a result.

I enjoy visiting Barcelona, as it is a stylish city and a lot of the fashion stuff in Spain seems to happen there.  Spain is reasonable (though not effortlessly perfect) generally.  The CIA estimates its obesity rate to be 26.6%, which I am surprised about: - although Spanish señoritas are not as effortlessly thin as we French women, they are certainly much less obese than American and British women.

From rumours I have read, RENFE (the Spanish operator) is planning to offer Marseille-Barcelona-Madrid services sometime soon, though there have apparently been homologation issues.  I must point out that the Spanish are planning to run their international services using rolling stock supplied by Alstom (a French company, yay!), the S100, which they originally ordered for the first high-speed line they opened (this was the Madrid-Seville line in 1992).

Even when these planned services are introduced, apart from the Nîmes-Montpellier bypass currently under construction, there will still be a huge gap in the high-speed network between Montpellier and Perpignan.  I love being able to zip to lovely cities and see the countryside along the way, but I like my train journeys to be short and sharp, as time I spend on the train is time I could otherwise be spending in the market hunting for the choicest ingredients, visiting swish new restaurants for new recipe ideas or soaking up the fashion scene of whatever city I am in at the time.  As self-important upstart Americans would say, time is money!  Being an efficient French woman, a lot of my time on the trains is spent performing editorial duties on my fashion magazine: - drafts are sent to me by PDF or OpenOffice format (why should I pay to use Microsoft Office if I can get OpenOffice for free?) and I tend to plan things so that I can do editing work during the train journey.  Even so, I am disappointed in our pinko-liberal commie-socialist 75%-tax president!

I am also disappointed because I visit Perpignan regularly and love the Mediterranean atmosphere of the city and I will have to wait a lot longer to enjoy super-fast journeys all the way.

Before closing this blog entry, I thought I would be unpatriotic and mention a few things to do with railways that are done better in Spain, MDR.  Spain has the longest high-speed railway network in the whole of Europe at present and would have briefly had the longest high-speed network in the world if it weren't for delays in opening the line from Madrid to Albacete and Valencia.  I also love the way Club class on Spanish AVE services involves relatively elaborate meals compared to first class on France's TGV services: - I recall a meal with lots of dinky little breakfast items and a dinky little bottle of high-quality olive oil (though not as high as the Provence stuff).

All in all, Spain is nowhere near as impossibly perfect as France, but I am nevertheless disappointed by these delays, which I believe are the inevitable economic reality of our idiotic president's mismanagement of the economy.