Right now, France’s rail system is in the news mostly because workers have been on strike for over a month fighting pension changes.
When the trains are running, most of the attention goes to the system’s top-of-the-line high-speed TGV trains—but French transport ministers are now calling for action to save the country’s regional rail system, called TER, which has suffered years of decay, with some lines running on rail laid in the 1930s.
Transport ministry officials are planning to spend several billion Euros to “preserve the maximum number of France’s small, regional train lines” which are vital links between small towns and their cities, especially in in age when reducing carbon emissions is a national goal. The lines are operated by agencies of the national rail operator SNCF, although the plan may call for returning control of some to regional authorities.
The TER system accounts for about 9,000 km of track, almost a third of the system; around half of that is operating under speed restrictions because of unreliable track and signals. Last January, a former Ecology Ministor ordered a report, with case-by-case solutions, on the state of TER. The transport Junior Minister was asked when he plans to publish the report; he refused, saying “It’s no longer the time for reports, it’s time to act.”c
Photo: TER train at Douai station (Florian Pépellin/Wikimedia)
