… Speechless !
New French trains too big for stations
French railway bosses have been forced to
admit an embarrassing error that led to hundreds of new passenger trains
ordered for its regional network being too big to fit in many stations.
Described as a “tragicomedy” by transport
minister Frédéric Cuvillier, 1,300 platforms at stations around the country are
having to be altered at a cost of €50m to accommodate the new rolling stock.
The 341 new trains, built by Alstom and the Canadian company Bombardier at a cost of some €15bn, are due to be
rolled out on to the network by the end of 2016.
A sheepish SNCF, the state-owned railway company
which also runs France’s famous TGV high speed rail network, and RFF, the
network operator, said the new trains, which include about 2,000 carriages in
total, were built to “international standards” – but this proved to be too wide
for many stations.
The mistake apparently stemmed from standard
specifications for platform dimensions supplied by RFF to SNCF that did not
take into account that many stations were built before the standard came into
effect about 30 years ago.
Jacques Rapoport, head of RFF, admitted on
Wednesday that the error was discovered “a little late”. Some 300 platforms
have already been altered. “It is as if you bought a new Ferrari and you
realise that it doesn’t quite fit in your garage because you didn’t have a
Ferrari before,” Christophe Piednoël at the RFF, told France Info radio.
Mr Cuvillier pointed the finger of blame for
the mix-up at the separation several years ago of SNCF and RFF, in line with an
EU push to liberalise Europe’s rail networks.
The Socialist government has instigated a
reform of the railway structure that will bring the train and network operators
back under one state umbrella group, although they will still have a “firewall”
between them to comply with EU rules.
“The point of our railway reform becomes
clear when you see the current state of dysfunction of the railway in France,”
he said.
Much of the investment due to be made
in the French railway system in
the coming years is to upgrade its regional and suburban networks that have
suffered from the priority given over the years to the TGV network. Last July, six
people died when an intercity train came off the rails as it was entering a
suburban station south of Paris.