Wednesday morning, Proxima unveiled its first high-speed train bearing its brand Velvet and its purple and green livery at Alstom's assembly site in La Rochelle. Created by Tim Jackson, a rail professional from Great Britain, and Rachel Picard, former head of SNCF Voyageurs, the future company states that it is respecting its schedule, which foresees an operational launch in 2028 on the Paris-Bordeaux, Paris-Nantes, and Paris-Rennes lines.
Velvet has managed to raise one billion euros from the investment fund Antin Infrastructure Partners to finance its commercial launch and its order for 12 Avelia Horizon high-speed TGV trains, using the same base for the two power cars and the 9 carriages as the TGV M that SNCF is preparing to launch this summer. The interior arrangements, however, will be specific to what will be the first independent French railway company that intends to cater to all types of customers.
During operation, train maintenance will be carried out by Alstom for an initial period of 15 years in workshops currently under construction in Marcheprime, near Bordeaux. This first train, which has just been christened, will undergo a series of tests at Alstom's La Rochelle site before beginning its trials on the rail network in 2027. With tight deadlines and a full order book, Alstom will have to continue construction of the 11 other double-decker trains in parallel. All the conditions are in place to deliver the 12 Avelia Horizon trainsets according to the planned schedule. Velvet, in a statement, aims to be optimistic.
A volume of 10 million passengers per year is hoped for
Velvet hopes to transport 10 million passengers a year between the capital and major cities on the Atlantic coast. The carrier points to the current shortage of services on these routes. " Nearly 15% of travellers are left on the platform, a figure expected to reach 25% by 2030 if additional trains are not running. », reckons Velvet. In addition to leisure, the business clientele is clearly among the objectives due to the dense network of companies, industrial and otherwise, located in and around Bordeaux, Nantes, Rennes, Angers…
Upon its launch in 2028, Velvet should benefit from good distribution visibility if the measure that will allow the sale of tickets for SNCF's competitor companies on SNCF Connect has been definitively adopted. Voted on in the Senate, this article 9bis, planned within the future Transport law, must still be adopted by the National Assembly to come into force in January 2028. However, besides SNCF, the young company may also have to quickly contend with Le Train, which also aims to run services on the Paris-Bordeaux and Paris-Nantes routes from 2029.
