Better than an example of the recurring problems encountered by passengers who prefer the train to the plane between Paris and Clermont Ferrand. Just two days after the announcement of a extensive improvement plan On this route, the Intercités train leaving the capital at the end of the day arrived at its destination in Auvergne in the middle of the night, more than three hours late. This was due to a further malfunction, requiring the 247 passengers to change trains at Nevers. However, these passengers could count themselves lucky compared to the 700 passengers who took the same train on 19 January. More unlucky were those who found themselves stranded for more than two hours in the middle of nowhere, in the dark and without heating, due to an electrical fault in the locomotive. They left Paris at 6.57pm and arrived in Clermont-Ferrand in the early hours of the morning after a long journey. 11 hours of misery for a journey that normally takes around 3h30.
One incident too many for the French government. On 23 February last, SNCF management, led by Jean-Pierre Farandou, accompanied the ministers for the ecological transition and transport, Christophe Béchu and Patrice Vergriete, to the Auvergne capital to present an action plan to improve the quality of service.avoid repeated malfunctions. " I would like to tell them, as well as the local councillors and passenger customers, that the SNCF teams are fully mobilised.said the SNCF CEO. I am determined to improve the situation on the Paris-Clermont line" .
The measures, implemented at the request of Christophe Béchu, relate to incident prevention with a plan to improve the reliability of all locomotives during 2024, enabling possible faults to be predicted and monitored remotely, as well as the addition of a new remote monitoring system on the Nevers-St Germain des Fossés section and, by the summer, improved response capacity in the event of a catenary incident. Above all, since more than half of the delays of more than 3 hours on this line are mainly due to falling trees or collisions with animals, SNCF Réseau is going to increase track safety in this game-filled area through a programme of fencing and brush clearance.
Reserve locomotive as a broom wagon
At the same time, the company explains that it is working on a better incident managementIn March, a reserve electric locomotive will be placed in Nevers. This is a sort of "broom wagon", which will run between Montargis and Nevers in the evening so that, if necessary, the last trains can be rescued. The scope of this system is due to be extended from September onwards. The SNCF has also signed an assistance agreement with the Nièvre Prefecture, which will come into effect in March and will facilitate the intervention of the Sécurité Civile and Red Cross services.
But as the worst is always to be expected, as well as offering refunds to passengers, SNCF is assuring thata systematic supply of bottled water and lunch boxes as soon as a delay exceeds 2 hours, while providing additional resources dedicated to passenger information. This is all the more reason to sit back and wait for the arrival of the new self-propelled trains that will gradually replace the Corail trains between now and 2026 on the Paris-Clermont-Ferrand and Paris-Limoges-Toulouse lines. The State is investing €800 million in this modernisation of the network as part of the "Oxygène" project. A breath of fresh air, no doubt, for the business travellers of a major French company specialising in tyres.
