The Bordeaux-Lyon service is back in the spotlight. This time, not by conventional train, via Limoges, Montluçon and Roanne as in the days of the late Railcoop, but by TGV via the Ile-de-France region, at the initiative of SNCF. The national railway company is planning this new high-speed line for 2027, with a daily Ouigo return trip. The route would bypass the south of Paris, with a stop at Massy-TGV station. The journey should take around 5 hours, with stops planned in Poitiers and Saint-Pierre des Corps, near Tours. At present, this TGV journey via the capital requires a change between Montparnasse and Paris-Lyon stations, which is not very convenient for business customers, who mainly opt for air travel. According to the traffic plan in the pipeline, the TGV would leave Lyon early in the morning and return from Bordeaux in the afternoon, so that it could arrive in the capital of the Gauls in the evening.
A target of one million passengers a year
The SNCF has set itself the ambitious target of getting one million passengers to travel on this route, with both leisure and business customers looking for a more environmentally-friendly transport solution than the plane, which currently links the two regional capitals in 1 hour 10 minutes. And to stand out from Air France and Easyjet, for whom the route is highly lucrative, the SNCF has apparently chosen to operate this service with Ouigo, its low-cost service for which it will soon have new, renovated trains. The company's ambition is for Ouigo to represent 30% of its high-speed offer by 2030, with around fifty trains with more capacity than today. If it proves a success, SNCF is already planning to introduce a second daily rotation.
A connection with line 18 of the Grand Paris at Massy-Palaiseau from 2027
The route should also appeal to passengers needing to get to the Essonne region, particularly Massy and Palaiseau, but also Orly airport and the companies, universities and grandes écoles on the Saclay plateau. To facilitate mobility in the south-west of the Ile-de-France region, the future line 18 of the Grand Paris metro will link Orly airport to Versailles via Massy-Palaiseau TGV, Polytechnique, Université de Paris-Saclay, Guyancourt (for Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines), etc. As well as serving 3 towns with more than 200,000 inhabitants, this future line will connect 13% of French public (CEA Saclay, Université Paris Saclay, Polytechnique, Agroparitech...) and private research, as well as several major companies including Thales, EDF, Danone, Renault...
When the Bordeaux-Lyon TGV link opens in 2027, the Massy-Palaiseau TGV-Christ de Saclay section will already have been operational since the 4th quarter of 2026, with full service between Massy-Palaiseau TGV and Orly airport currently scheduled for the 4thᵉ quarter of 2027 and the entire route at the end of 2030 with the inauguration of the Christ de Saclay-Versailles Chantiers section. Will SNCF launch its Ouigo service as early as spring 2027, or will it wait until December 2027 and its Winter service to benefit from a connection to Paris-Orly airport, a guarantee of better train occupancy?
