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MAP: The proposed new routes for night trains in France

As the pandemic and increasing environmental concerns change the way we travel, France's transport minister has a dream - 10 night trains by 2030.

MAP: The proposed new routes for night trains in France
Photo: AFP

France already has two night train lines and another two are set to open up by the end of 2021, but for transport minister Jean-Baptiste Djebbari this is only the start.

The minister has commissioned a report into greatly expanding France's night train network, both for domestic lines and inter-European routes and has declared his ambition to have 10 night train routes running by 2030.

 

He told Le Parisien: “I'm convinced that when the means are there, with a good quality of service and the right commercial offer, there is a clientele for night trains.

“With the ecological stakes, 'flyskam' (flight shame) and the pandemic that is reshaping the way we travel, the night train has everything to attract travellers.

“Look at Austria, they have 28 night lines. In France, the development of the TGV has eaten up the night trains and the offer has deteriorated. All that has to change.”

A government feasibility study has now been published and identified 7 possible routes for night trains, with Paris and Nice acting as 'hubs'.

 

The survey proposes the following routes:

  • Paris to south west France and into northern Spain, via Tours, Bordeaux and Bayonne
  • Paris to Marseille in a loop via Tours and Bordeaux before running along the south coast to Marseille
  • Paris to Barcelona via Brive
  • Paris to Toulouse via Orléans with branch lines to Clermont-Ferrand and Albi
  • Paris to Nice via Avignon and Marseille
  • Nice to Quimper in Brittany via Lyon, with a branch line going to Bordeaux
  • Nice to Metz via Strasbourg and Lyon, with a branch line crossing the Swiss border to Geneva and Lyon

Night trains already run between Paris and Briançon in the Alps and Cerbère in the Pyrenees and the two scheduled to begin by the end of 2021 are the Paris to Nice route and Paris to Tarbes in the south west.

 

The EU is also investing in rail connections, with plans for an ultra-rapid network that would make it possible to travel from Paris to Berlin in four hours.

READ ALSO MAP The plan for Europe's ultra-rapid train network

Once the two lines reopen in 2021 – which are funded until 2022 – there is no guaranteed funding or firm plans for other routes.

Djebbari said: “This still needs to be discussed at a ministerial level, with parliament and local authorities.

“These are proposals that need to be refined. Given the major work that needs to be carried out on the network, it will be difficult to open many others before 2025.

“But the history of night trains does not stop in 2022. It is also a question of regional planning. My ambition is 10 night trains by 2030.”

 
 

 

Member comments

  1. We would like to see the car trains put back onto the routes. We used to take the overnight train from Paris to Nice and put the car on the car train. The car train was recently withdrawn which is of no use to us. Will the car trains be reinstated?

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TRAVEL NEWS

German train strike wave to end following new labour agreement

Germany's Deutsche Bahn rail operator and the GDL train drivers' union have reached a deal in a wage dispute that has caused months of crippling strikes in the country, the union said.

German train strike wave to end following new labour agreement

“The German Train Drivers’ Union (GDL) and Deutsche Bahn have reached a wage agreement,” GDL said in a statement.

Further details will be announced in a press conference on Tuesday, the union said. A spokesman for Deutsche Bahn also confirmed that an agreement had been reached.

Train drivers have walked out six times since November, causing disruption for huge numbers of passengers.

The strikes have often lasted for several days and have also caused disruption to freight traffic, with the most recent walkout in mid-March.

In late January, rail traffic was paralysed for five days on the national network in one of the longest strikes in Deutsche Bahn’s history.

READ ALSO: Why are German train drivers launching more strike action?

Europe’s largest economy has faced industrial action for months as workers and management across multiple sectors wrestle over terms amid high inflation and weak business activity.

The strikes have exacerbated an already gloomy economic picture, with the German economy shrinking 0.3 percent across the whole of last year.

What we know about the new offer so far

Through the new agreement, there will be optional reduction of a work week to 36 hours at the start of 2027, 35.5 hours from 2028 and then 35 hours from 2029. For the last three stages, employees must notify their employer themselves if they wish to take advantage of the reduction steps.

However, they can also opt to work the same or more hours – up to 40 hours per week are possible in under the new “optional model”.

“One thing is clear: if you work more, you get more money,” said Deutsche Bahn spokesperson Martin Seiler. Accordingly, employees will receive 2.7 percent more pay for each additional or unchanged working hour.

According to Deutsche Bahn, other parts of the agreement included a pay increase of 420 per month in two stages, a tax and duty-free inflation adjustment bonus of 2,850 and a term of 26 months.

Growing pressure

Last year’s walkouts cost Deutsche Bahn some 200 million, according to estimates by the operator, which overall recorded a net loss for 2023 of 2.35 billion.

Germany has historically been among the countries in Europe where workers went on strike the least.

But since the end of 2022, the country has seen growing labour unrest, while real wages have fallen by four percent since the start of the war in Ukraine.

German airline Lufthansa is also locked in wage disputes with ground staff and cabin crew.

Several strikes have severely disrupted the group’s business in recent weeks and will weigh on first-quarter results, according to the group’s management.

Airport security staff have also staged several walkouts since January.

Some politicians have called for Germany to put in place rules to restrict critical infrastructure like rail transport from industrial action.

But Chancellor Olaf Scholz has rejected the calls, arguing that “the right to strike is written in the constitution… and that is a democratic right for which unions and workers have fought”.

The strikes have piled growing pressure on the coalition government between Scholz’s Social Democrats, the Greens and the pro-business FDP, which has scored dismally in recent opinion polls.

The far-right AfD has been enjoying a boost in popularity amid the unrest with elections in three key former East German states due to take place later this year.

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