France needs better slow trains, not just fast ones

[D6130]

Thank you. I wonder why Ussel, population 9,000, has been highlighted. It doesn't sound like a better rail service would necessarily help it to be re-populated.

Until quite recently, Ussel - which I have visited three times - was a comparatively busy (by French standards) junction station, with interconnecting services to/from Brive, Limoges, Montlucon and Clermont Ferrand....sufficient to support a train crew depot and - in steam days - a sizeable locomotive shed. Over the past twenty years or so, all but the Brive and Limoges routes have lost their trains by the slow process of attrition described in post #23. To be fair, the line from Clermont and Volvic, which seemed to be the busiest of the four routes on my first two visits, has been blocked by two fairly major landslips which will cost millions to restore. I got the impression that a fairly large proportion of the population of Ussel must have been employed on the railway at one time and that it has a similar run-down feel to quite a few former 'railway towns' in the UK.

 

[Western Lord]

I suspect that SNCF's aversion to clockface timetables is largely on the basis of NIH (Not Invented Here). Another disincentive to travel is the absurdly complicated SNCF timetable, with hardly any trains running at the same time every day, loads of dated trains, including some that don't run on some seemingly random three or four days in the year. SNCF's attitude is seen in the recent "improvement" to the Nantes - Bordeaux service which involved singling half the line and introducing new trains running at the same old inadequate frequencies, and now with the singling impossible to improve. The answer to this is that if you want to travel from Nantes to Bordeaux SNCF would rather you travelled by TGV via Paris (the same applies to Nantes to Lyon).

 

[Taunton]

Another disincentive to travel is the absurdly complicated SNCF timetable, with hardly any trains running at the same time every day, loads of dated trains, including some that don't run on some seemingly random three or four days in the year.

Challenging even for the staff.

I always liked Hamilton Ellis' description in one of his books of a day return within Brittany while holidaying there in the 1950s, which involved two or three connections each way. The conductor in the first train looked at his day return ticket and announced "C'est impossible", only for Ellis to say it was, and be left with a shrug, the conductor not knowing of course that Ellis of all people was not one to argue railway detail with. Last train coming home, and by chance it's the same conductor. "Bien possible" says Ellis. Another shrug.

 

[duncanp]

Relative's WW1 British war cemetery is in the Somme. Arras is the nearest station and city, then there's a bus I see to Bapaume, halfway there, five times a day. Bapaume has a population of about 5,000, supermarkets, a ring road, a market, but that's it for public transport. Beyond it's only by car.

Ironically the Paris TGV is now distantly visible from the cemetery.

My great grandfather is buried in a military cemetery in Godewaersvelde, Nord.

To get there requires taking a train from Lille to Hazebrouck and then a bus (4 times a day)

What is frustrating is that the buses and trains don't connect in any meaningful way. ie there is a bus at 12:00 from Hazebrouck, but the 10:23 from Lille arrives Hazebrouck 11:09 and the next train from Lille is at 12:23 arriving 13:09. Even if there was a train at 11:23 to fit in with a regular clockface timetable, it would miss the bus by 10 minutes.

TER services on Saturdays are noticeably less frequent than the already sparse weekday timetable, and as for Sunday, you must be having a laugh.

"Avec la SNCF, tout est possible" ("anything is possible with the SNCF") as one French person said to me.

 

[Austriantrain]

Maybe the French have taken a good hard look at the demographics (proportionally more people in France live in cities, and in apartments), and the costs of providing rail versus other forms of public transport and concluded high speed rail is the right thing for moving people between cities, light rail is the right thing for moving people on key corridors within cities, and buses/coaches are the right thing for moving people elsewhere? No emotion, just pure economics? Yes, they still subsidise public transport with typically low fares, but not to the extent of keeping the 'wrong' mode going for any particular market.

Democracy doesn’t run on efficiency alone, which the French should have learned a long time ago, and recently from the gillets jaunes (the same is true for the UK…as should have been found out when the red wall crumbled).

The Swiss know very well why each of their rail investment plans gives priority - for obvious reasons - to the most densely populated areas of the country, but does not neglect the rest. There is a reason why they always get approval in referenda for major rail expenditure.

 

[Feuillesmortes]

1 in 4 TGVs have been cancelled for the Christmas weekend and there is a great deal of disappointment on social media, because the remaining trains are all full.

I believe that there are slower, non-reservable trains for most of the routes but the SNCF website doesn't let people book them when there is a theoretical quicker connection!

 

[rvdborgt]

1 in 4 TGVs have been cancelled for the Christmas weekend and there is a great deal of disappointment on social media, because the remaining trains are all full.

I believe that there are slower, non-reservable trains for most of the routes but the SNCF website doesn't let people book them when there is a theoretical quicker connection!

The timetable planner on the SNCF website and in their app is a disgrace. Nowadays, it's a Hacon planner, as used by many others such as DB, but crippled by restrictions. It doesn't let you exclude train types, it heavily favours TGV journeys (sometimes even when there's a faster TER option) and it limits the number of changes to 2. You can include a "via" but it often ignores it.
I usually plan France using the DB website but of course that doesn't work well if SNCF have included last-minute changes.

 

[Feuillesmortes]

I usually plan France using the DB website but of course that doesn't work well if SNCF have included last-minute changes.

As a matter of interest, how would someone book the example below? (and I recognise that, in line with this thread topic, there isn't capacity on the TERs for all the passengers from the cancelled TGVs)

23.12.2022
13:06–19:50
|6h 44min
,
2 Changes

TER16765
TER57695
TER56667
Paris Montparnasse
Quimper

 

[WibbleWobble]

The Voiture Sans Permis is another French measure to help people living in rural areas, there are large areas where there is no public transport, and it means that people are not trapped

And don't forget that a lot of areas that do have public transport (namely buses) only have services that are timed around schools!

 

[rvdborgt]

As a matter of interest, how would someone book the example below? (and I recognise that, in line with this thread topic, there isn't capacity on the TERs for all the passengers from the cancelled TGVs)

23.12.2022
13:06–19:50
|6h 44min
,
2 Changes

TER16765
TER57695
TER56667
Paris Montparnasse
Quimper

I hope that can still be booked at the ticket office or via phone (press #85 for English). At the ticket office they used to be able to do much more than on the website or ticket machines.
I usually use the text version of the DB planner:

Deutsche Bahn: bahn.de - Verbindungen - Ihre Anfrage

(replace dl by el for English)
And then copy the output into a text file.

 

[Bald Rick]

I have travelled quite a bit in France, and the thing that strikes me is how quickly once out of a city you are into fairly empty country, just villages and farms, even Paris, once you leave the built up area, its rural, not like the UK where there tends to be sprawl along major arteries.

Which is one reason why LGVs cost rather less per km than HS2.

 

[dutchflyer]

Funny they name Ussel-the one time I was there, must have been pre 2000, it was to take an overnite train from there to Paris, Corail stock, as I remember at that time no need to even make a reservation for that. Must have had one or other type of pass.
But now it seems to me that for a big great part rail services are also in line with population density. France out of the Paris mega-area compares then with Scotland or Ireland-also not really very famous for intensive or very fast trains. And let us then just bypass Spain- much, much worse. Same difference between the high and low speed lines. Also as a broad overview, railways use either the ´often and short trains´(tipical UK out of LOndon area) or ´when we run its a long one=France. Both have their proś and cons. Plus that FR has as I have heard about the very highest track-use charges of all of Europe, so it also makes a little sense from that point of view.
In fact some years ago many timetables were made to use ´fixed times in mins´ for not these very minor lines, but not in all cases also every hour-so they were able to copy that model. In the far north it certainly does apply. FR also has a log time tradtiion of mornings ´periods blanc=time set for possible short maintenance, no trains.
These lamentations about the bad service are tipical newsppr slack times parrotting that turns up all the times without much extra info. Unless its a local news-then it follows with the urgent request that place (A, B) also should have a direct TGV to the big capital and ASAP!

 

[AdamWW]

The timetable planner on the SNCF website and in their app is a disgrace. Nowadays, it's a Hacon planner, as used by many others such as DB, but crippled by restrictions. It doesn't let you exclude train types, it heavily favours TGV journeys (sometimes even when there's a faster TER option) and it limits the number of changes to 2. You can include a "via" but it often ignores it.
I usually plan France using the DB website but of course that doesn't work well if SNCF have included last-minute changes.

Can you use 3rd party systems like RailEurope? I know they offer more flexibility in Spain than the RENFE planner does (e.g. they will actually let you book a journey with a connection, which the RENFE planner is very reluctant to do).

 

[MisterSheeps]

it serves a good range of settlements

yes, if between major cities, though residents of places such as Bawtry may not agree. A better comparison is e.g Hereford, Grimsby, Hull & Wrexham

junction station, with interconnecting services

Ussel had, for a long time, a night service to Paris, was on a secondary main line to Aurillac, which got severed by the reservoir north of Bort les Orgues. A bypass tunnel was under construction then abandoned.

 

[rvdborgt]

Can you use 3rd party systems like RailEurope? I know they offer more flexibility in Spain than the RENFE planner does (e.g. they will actually let you book a journey with a connection, which the RENFE planner is very reluctant to do).

Maybe you can use Raileurope, if you can use the one via station it offers to force the journey you want. I've never tried that.
On the Belgian railways international booking website, you can enter a via station and tick "no high speed trains". Although that last option does sometimes result in journeys (with prices), it misses a lot of them. E.g. try Paris - Lille without high speed trains and compare that with DB's output.