In an exceptional move, France’s rail infrastructure manager SNCF Réseau is undertaking a major tranche of track maintenance during day-time hours in order to preserve night-time rail freight services. The novelty is it allows freight trains to operate their normal night-time schedules while minimising disruption to passengers as much as possible during the morning and evening rush hour periods.
The French state railway group unit is currently carrying out renovation work on the Paris-Orléans-Limoges-Toulouse (POLT) rail line at a cost of 130 million euros. The decision to undertake the work during the day rather than at night, in order to prioritise freight, led to complaints from local elected officials, such as councillors and MPs, whose constituents use the line to commute to and from work.
“Basically, rail passengers couldn’t understand why freight should come first,” noted SNCF Réseau CEO, Matthieu Chabanel, during an address at a recent conference of France’s combined freight transport association, the GNTC. “When I mentioned what we had decided to do, no one among rail operators believed me. However, the fact that the maintenance project – the biggest on the French network this year – has since featured as a topic on the national TV news, has maybe given greater credence to my declarations of love for rail freight !” he quipped.
Just-in-time shipments
SNCF Réseau’s argument is that the POLT line, including the Paris-Orléans section, which is the focus of the track renovation, is an essential part of the Atlantic rail freight corridor, connecting Northern Europe to Spain. At night, it accommodates a large number of freight trains that must operate to very strict timetables, set out in cross-border agreements with European networks. These night-time services cannot be re-scheduled for day-time as they transport just-in-time shipments such as automobiles, chemicals and industrial products, as well as containerised goods.
Operational compromise
SNCF Réseau’s solution on the POLT line is a compromise which seeks to best reconcile the needs of freight traffic and rail passengers during major track maintenance. Heavy renovation operations are carried out Monday to Friday between 9:30am to 5:30pm – an eight hour-long time slot instead of the nine hours normally allotted to this kind of work. This offsets disruption to peak period passenger services for commuters in the morning and evening and also allows freight trains to operate without hindrance during nigh-time periods.
‘Balanced policy’
Braced for a future scenario where an increase in the volume of renovation and maintenance work is matched by rising traffic flow, it will be crucial for SNCF Réseau to achieve the kind of operational compromise it has succeeded in delivering on the POLT line, Chabanel observed. However, the task will be made even more difficult given that in addition to the renewal of the network, new development is also planned, for example, railway gauging work.
“This is eagerly awaited by (rail freight) operators but as we know such work has a very significant impact on traffic because it generally requires both tracks to be closed at the same time.” He added: “Implementing a balanced policy, that limits the impact on passenger transport and rail freight as the modernisation of the rail network is undertaken, is the challenge we are facing in the years to come.”