railway companies

The opening up of French regional lines to competition has also been on the cards since December 2019, fanning the flames of interest from Transdev (a subsidiary of the Caisse des Dépôts et Consignations), RATP Dev Rail, Régioneo (a joint venture between Getlink and RATP) and Arriva (a subsidiary of DB), all keen to make inroads into the SNCF. In...

In mid-July, Renfe began services on the Lyon-Barcelona and Marseille-Barcelona-Madrid routes. One year after the arrival of Trenitalia and its Frecciarossa operating on the Paris-Lyon-Milan route, the launch of the Spanish national carrier on French rail represents a new stage in the opening up to rail competition, which will be possible from December 2020. Following the applications...

How would you assess Trenitalia's arrival in France? Roberto Rinaudo - The results are very positive, even though since the summer we have had to concentrate on the Paris-Lyon route because of the landslides that occurred at the end of August in the Maurienne valley, which led to the suspension of services to Milan until June 2024. Our...

The Ministry of Transport, headed by Clément Beaune, confirmed on 26 October at a steering committee meeting organised by the Préfecture du Grand Est: the Metz-Nancy-Dijon-Lyon line will reopen by early 2025, probably when the SNCF winter service is introduced in December 2024. It's a real breath of fresh air...

Normandy, Brittany, Pays de Loire, Hauts-de-France, Centre-Val de Loire: in these five regions, TER trains will be at a standstill on Thursday 2 November - or even from Wednesday evening until Friday morning. The storm Ciaran is forcing SNCF Réseau to introduce this radical measure: the preventive stoppage of rail traffic. The measure, known as "stop...

In order to fine-tune its yield management system and adapt to more open rail competition on its most profitable lines, SNCF has been moving in successive stages since 26 September to a new booking platform to replace the ageing ResaRail system. Starting with BtoB reservations for...

The high-speed rail link between Paris and London via the Channel Tunnel is attracting a lot of interest. While Eurostar has just merged with Thalys and is preparing to launch its first branding campaign, the Evolyn project is entering a new phase with an order for 12 Avelia TGVs (+ 4 options)...

It was a hard blow. Just as Trenitalia was getting off the ground in France, landslides on 27 August in the Maurienne valley forced the Italian company to suspend its two daily Paris-Milan rotations. And a return to normal operations is not expected before June 2024, by which time the thousands of...

"Don't ever call me Thalys again". On 1 October this year, Thalys disappeared, merged with Eurostar, the brand chosen because it is the best known, particularly among overseas customers. This new beginning was well worth a presentation yesterday in London at the company's offices near St Pancras International station, and a small party to celebrate its first campaign...

Buoyed by a healthy cash position during the pandemic, MSC is continuing its shopping spree. After acquiring Bolloré Africa Logistics and Aliscargo Airlines in the freight sector, the Swiss-Italian shipping group is now gaining a foothold in passenger transport by acquiring a 50% stake in Italo, Trenitalia's competitor in the Italian high-speed rail market. The...

Clément Beaune, the French Transport Minister, came in person to witness the arrival of the TGV M at the Paris-Charenton Technicentre, on a maintenance track modified to accommodate this extraordinary train. This presentation comes as the future TGV begins its trials on the national network, following those carried out in the Czech Republic...

The High Speed 2 (HS2) project, Britain's second high-speed rail line after the Eurostar to St Pancras, has been a veritable snake in the grass. British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak blew the whistle on the project on Wednesday at the Conservative Party conference in Manchester, in this major metropolis in the...

On 30 September last, at Brussels-Midi station, a small ceremony celebrated the last TGV to run under the Thalys brand, bringing to a close a railway adventure that began in 1996. The Thalys.com website was closed at the same time, with users now being directed to the Eurostar.com website as part of the merger of the two subsidiary companies...

Trainline and Fairjungle are strengthening their partnership with the addition of services from the Swiss, Belgian and Dutch national railways. Through Trainline Partner Solutions, Trainline's BtoB division, the young TMC now benefits from SBB inventories and Benerail, the Belgian-Dutch platform founded in 2003 by SNCB and NS....

After a slow start with the sale of bus tickets last January, followed by the sale of Italo rail tickets in August, Kombo is now making its arrival on the Italian market official, with the possibility of booking in seven languages. "We've gone from €30,000 in sales to €150,000 per...

Guillaume Confais-Morieux, the SNCF's Travel Agencies Market Director, was all smiles when he unveiled the results for business traffic at the IFTM Top Resa tourism trade fair. "While 2022 was a record year for leisure travel, 2023 saw a recovery in business traffic, with a small increase in the number of business travellers....

Under the rather quirky code name of "Botox", the SNCF has unveiled its plan to extend the service life of around a hundred TGVs, with the aim of increasing the number of seats by 15% by 2034. This facelift is in fact one of the solutions chosen by the rail company to respond to the...

It's now official. Almost 10 years after it was cancelled, the Paris-Berlin night train will be back in service this December, thanks to an initiative by the Austrian company ÖBB, which already operates several night trains in Europe, its famous "Nightjet" services such as Paris-Vienna and Brussels-Vienna. The first service will leave Berlin on December 11 and Paris on...

A year after unveiling the exterior design of its future TGV M, the SNCF has just presented the design of the 1st and 2nd class seats that will equip the trains delivered by the Alstom group from 2025. "The design of the seats and lamps will be an emblematic marker. They are the result of...

"Before meeting you on the pitch, I'm delighted to welcome you to the station throughout the Rugby World Cup France 2023": professionals travelling through France will be surprised to hear the voice of Antoine Dupont guiding them during their journeys. Throughout the competition, the captain of the French rugby...