It is the busiest line in the mainline rail network. The Paris-Lyon TGV line will be closed for four days from Saturday November 9 to Tuesday November 12, 2024 inclusive, in order to prepare for the commissioning of a new signaling system, SNCF Réseau announced on Thursday February 29. The work aims to equip the line, also the busiest in Europe, with the ERTMS signaling system, a European standard, which should make it possible to improve the regularity and reliability of trains, but also to increase the capacity of the line. by 25% by 2030.
ERTMS is a pan-European signaling system, which is intended to gradually replace national systems. It must, among other things, facilitate “the interoperability of the different European networks”, according to SNCF Réseau. “An operation of this scale is a world first on a high-speed line in operation,” the company said in its press release. Work to install this new system began five years ago, without interruption of traffic until now.
The Paris-Lyon TGV line, commissioned in 1981 and 460 kilometers long, sees a third of high-speed rail traffic in France. With ERTMS, the frequency will be able to increase from thirteen trains to sixteen trains per hour and per direction. The total amount of the operation amounts to 820 million euros, financed both by SNCF Réseau (700 million euros) and the European Commission (120 million euros). When the work was launched, the bill was estimated at 608 million euros and the project was expected to end in 2025.
“Significant increase in travel time” during the works
“Railway companies currently using the line will be able to continue to operate there without technical modifications to their rolling stock,” said the infrastructure manager. And companies will thus be able to have additional passage slots on a line already operated at maximum capacity, “without new infrastructure”.
The project includes several components: the modernization of the signal stations, a single command center in a “control tower” of the line and the increase in electrical power. The closure of the line for four days, which will mobilize “a thousand people for one hundred and one hours continuously”, aims to “commission the new supervision center”.
Throughout the duration of the closure, the transport plan will be adapted, with a reduction in the number of trains using the Paris-Lyon axis and “a significant increase in travel time via the classic line”, warns SNCF Réseau.
