TGV

The travel experience on high-speed trains between Europe and the UK is now back to normal. Since 7 September, passengers have been able to enjoy a full range of catering services on board Eurostar trains. Limited for a time due to the pandemic, this development comes on top of the reopening of the lounges...

It's now official: Eurostar will be operating a direct service between the Netherlands and the UK from 26 October 2020. Its debut was originally scheduled for 30 April this year, but Covid has postponed it until a better time. Making the journey in a single stretch, with no passport control in Brussels, the trains will...

SNCF and Spanish rail operator Renfe have announced the reintroduction of high-speed services between France and Spain on 1 July. From that date onwards, two trains a day will run in each direction from Paris and Marseille to Figueras, Girona and Barcelona, with other French cities...

Masks compulsory, one train out of two for daily journeys before rapidly increasing to three out of four, a limited number of TGVs: as information is given to the various national newspapers, the SNCF is setting out its transport plan for the period after 11 May. While travel will remain limited to 100...

The announcement of a €7 billion support plan for Air France, made official on 24 April, included a number of quid pro quos, and the environmental aspect was explicitly targeted. Wednesday's comments by Bruno Le Maire confirmed the creditor's demands of the company, emphasising that "this support for Air France is not a condition for the...

In a post-confinement world, where Covid-19 acts like a sword of Damocles on travel, the battle between rail and air is likely to be fierce to attract future travellers, particularly on relatively short routes. Since the launch of the high-speed rail networks, we already know that the train has little to...

As part of its commitment to the environment - and while the Flygskam ("shame of flying") movement originating in Sweden is gaining ground - the government is now taking all the necessary measures to join the virtuous circle of an exemplary State in terms of energy transition. Last Wednesday, a plan was presented to the Ecological Defence Council, including a...

French business travel operators are taking advantage of the summer to invest in their fleets. While Air France has just announced the acquisition of 60 new Airbus aircraft, it's the SNCF's turn to buy new equipment. The Board of Directors of SNCF Mobilités has just approved an order for 12 TGV Océane high-speed trains. The amount...

In just over a year's time, business travellers will finally be able to choose their rail operator in Spain. But for the government and the future operators, the future has already begun! Last December, the Council of Ministers approved a Royal Decree aimed at liberalising rail traffic in Spain. The...

Last week, the French government announced that it would be issuing a call for tenders in 2020 to allow competition on two railway lines, which will serve as a test: Nantes-Lyon and Nantes-Bordeaux, two minor lines representing a combined passenger traffic of 1.1 to 1.2 million. Rail competition would then begin in 2022,...

It was a titanic project that was not so easy to achieve. The new TGV line linking the new West Kowloon station in Hong Kong to those in Shenzhen and Guangzhou (Canton) will have been delayed for three years and cost 10.8 billion dollars, a third more than it cost...

13.4 billion: this is the investment that the government will be making over the current five-year period, as part of the Mobility Orientation Law (LOM). It's an ambitious programme, and one in which rail will play a key role, as Elisabeth Borne recently explained to the Conseil d'Orientation des Infrastructures (COI). Indeed, the...

After Paris-Montparnasse on10 December 2017, OUIGO will enter Paris-Est station from 7 July 2018. From that date, SNCF will offer four daily return trips to six destinations: three already linked to Paris by high-speed trains - Champagne-Ardenne TGV, Lorraine TGV and Strasbourg - plus three new ones: Metz, Nancy and...

Long a monopoly, Deutsche Bahn has been facing competition for more than a decade, and for the time being this has only been on regional routes. With one striking result: Deutsche Bahn's (DB) share of the market is shrinking year on year. Admittedly, the German national rail carrier remains number 1 with...

Brittany and the French overseas departments have never been so close. Travel between these two parts of the world will be easier from 6 March thanks to the TGV Air offer. Air France customers living near Rennes will be able to take advantage of train-plane tickets to Fort-de-France, Point-à-Pitre, Cayenne and Saint-Denis. This offer is in line with the...

Guillaume Pepy's argument for changing the name of the TGV offer to InOUI is to be one step ahead in terms of services in preparation for the opening up of mainline services to competition in 2020. The rebranding will take effect from 2 July, when the Summer on InOUI programme begins.

No longer called TGV, but InOui, the SNCF is abandoning a well-established name that has been virtually part of everyday language for almost forty years, in favour of a new brand identity that is both affirmative and positive. InOui joins OUIgo, OUIbus, OUIcar and soon OUI.sncf in the "yes" family, since to harmonise everything, the...

On 18 April, Air India and SNCF announced the signature of a bimodal partnership, which will enable the Indian carrier to join the TGV AIR network. In practical terms, this means that both business and leisure travellers will have access to a pre- and post-carriage service to one of the 77 destinations served by the airline from...

The SNCF is "simplifying its high-speed offer": this was the title used by the rail group on 7 March to confirm the end of the IDTGV offer, in order to refocus on two brands, TGV and Ouigo. The announcement, published on Tuesday, begins by stating that "IDTGV will not disappear...

The Paris-Bordeaux train is not yet travelling at very high speed, and business travellers cannot yet buy their tickets for the period in question. But today, Tuesday, the inauguration of the SEA Tours-Bordeaux High Speed Line was celebrated with great pomp and ceremony. François Hollande travelled to the Charente region - to be precise...