{"id":327161,"date":"2025-12-02T22:58:44","date_gmt":"2025-12-02T12:58:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.railfreight.com\/?p=67775"},"modified":"2025-12-02T22:58:44","modified_gmt":"2025-12-02T12:58:44","slug":"sncf-reseau-chooses-day-time-maintenance-to-preserve-freight-traffic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/?p=327161","title":{"rendered":"SNCF R\u00e9seau chooses day-time maintenance to preserve freight traffic"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>In an exceptional move, France\u2019s rail infrastructure manager SNCF R\u00e9seau 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.<\/strong><br \/>\n<span id=\"more-67775\"><\/span>The French state railway group unit is currently carrying out renovation work on the Paris-Orl\u00e9ans-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.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBasically, rail passengers couldn\u2019t understand why freight should come first,\u201d noted SNCF R\u00e9seau CEO, Matthieu Chabanel, during an address at a recent conference of France\u2019s combined freight transport association, the GNTC. \u201cWhen I mentioned what we had decided to do, no one among rail operators believed me. However, the fact that the maintenance project \u2013 the biggest on the French network this year \u2013 has since featured as a topic on the national TV news, has maybe given greater credence to my declarations of love for rail freight !\u201d he quipped.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"readmore\">\n<div class=\"readmore-item\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.railfreight.com\/in-depth\/2025\/11\/18\/political-situation-in-france-not-helping-rail-freight-sector-says-senior-industry-figure\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.railfreight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/Alexandre-Gallo-e1753964921656-128x128.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"readmore-thumbnail\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<div class=\"readmore-info\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.railfreight.com\/in-depth\/2025\/11\/18\/political-situation-in-france-not-helping-rail-freight-sector-says-senior-industry-figure\/\" class=\"readmore-title\">Political situation in France \u2018not helping\u2019 rail freight sector, says senior industry figure<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<h2>Just-in-time shipments<\/h2>\n<p>SNCF R\u00e9seau\u2019s argument is that the POLT line, including the Paris-Orl\u00e9ans 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.<\/p>\n<h2>Operational compromise<\/h2>\n<p>SNCF R\u00e9seau\u2019s 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 \u2013 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.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"readmore\">\n<div class=\"readmore-item\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.railfreight.com\/business\/2025\/10\/24\/sncf-reseau-chief-hails-dynamism-of-french-combined-transport-sector\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.railfreight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Matthieu-Chabanel-head-of-SNCF-Reseau-128x128.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"readmore-thumbnail\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<div class=\"readmore-info\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.railfreight.com\/business\/2025\/10\/24\/sncf-reseau-chief-hails-dynamism-of-french-combined-transport-sector\/\" class=\"readmore-title\">SNCF R\u00e9seau chief hails \u2018dynamism\u2019 of French combined transport sector<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<h2>\u2018Balanced policy\u2019<\/h2>\n<p>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 R\u00e9seau 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.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis 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.\u201d He added: \u201cImplementing 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.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In an exceptional move, France\u2019s rail infrastructure manager SNCF R\u00e9seau is undertaking a major tranche of track maintenance during day-time hours in order to preserve\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[94,336,47,98],"tags":[12634],"class_list":["post-327161","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-france","category-policy","category-rail-news","category-sncf-reseau","tag-railfreight"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327161","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=327161"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327161\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":327162,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327161\/revisions\/327162"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=327161"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=327161"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=327161"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}