The company's project The Train is accelerating. For its high-speed trainsthe private carrier has chosen the Spaniard Talgo which he commissioned 10 Avril trainsets for a total of some 300 million euros. The call for tenders was issued at the beginning of 2022 to a number of different manufacturers following difficulties in acquiring from the SNCF trains that have been retired due to their age and the presence of asbestos. " A European directive confirmed by the French government prohibits us from selling this asbestos-contaminated equipment." told us yesterday Alain KrakovitchDirector of TGV-Intercités at SNCF.
The agreement between Le Train and Talgo provides for the possibility of acquiring additional trains over a period of 10 years and the implementation of a maintenance for the entire fleet, which will be machined from the first half of 2023 at a facility in Rivabellosa, in the Spanish Basque Country. The creation of a R&D in the region New Aquitaine has also been announced. The trains will have a number of special features to meet customer expectations, particularly in the leisure segment, with around forty places for bicycles and a space for surfboards for passengers going to tease the waves of the Landes coast. The chosen capacity is 360 passengers "class" for trains that will run up to 330 km/h.
50 daily services planned by 2025
The horizon looks brighter for Le Train. Following the entry of two banks into its capital structure - which helped finance the acquisition of 10 train sets - the operator obtained its rail company licence on 24 December last. Using the South Europe Atlantic line which it considers to be under-exploited, Le Train plans to launch in 2025 by exploiting alternative services between 11 townsof Bordeaux to Nantes, Rennes, Angoulême, Poitiers, Arcachon... Some fifty trains a day are planned, including early morning and late evening services as well as weekend services. SNCF is not worried about this future competitor. " This is good news, because there is a need to develop rail services in France. The pie is growing and new arrivals are not reducing the occupancy rates of our TGVs, notes Alain Krakovitch. Le Train will operate on routes where SNCF is not present. I wish them good luck" .
Finally, it should be noted that these are not the only Talgo trains due to run in France over the next few years. The Spanish national railway company plans to operate from 2023 high-speed trains AVE built by Talgo on lines Lyon-Barcelona and Marseille-Madrid.
The aim is to run 50 trains a day from the first year with " regular services, earlier in the morning, later in the evening and at weekends, for both working and leisure travellers, serving 11 towns in the Grand-Ouest region "because what's at stake is the frequency in a approach " inter- and intra-regional" with connections in Bordeaux and to the coast for the weekend. 3 million passengers a year are targeted.
