Traveling more slowly, but above all cheaper: this is what SNCF wants to develop with its “classic” Ouigo trains. Since April 2022, the railway company has already been offering “slow” connections from Paris to Lyon and Nantes. And by the end of 2024, it plans to launch three more: to Brussels, Bordeaux and Rennes.
The SNCF filed a file on July 17 with the Transport Regulatory Authority (ART) to formulate a request for the operation of these three new links.
The two slow links that exist today
Click on the picture to zoom. Infographic SNCF
Paris-Brussels: five round trips per day
According to this file, the journey between the two capitals, Paris and Brussels, would last around three hours, against 1h22 by the high-speed line. The departure would be from the Gare du Nord.
SNCF in France and SNCB in Belgium will work together to offer five daily round trips with trains with a capacity of 600 to 700 seats serving several intermediate stations: Creil and Aulnoye-Aimeries in France and Mons in Belgium.
Many intermediate cities served
For the line between Paris and Bordeaux, whose departure would be from the Parisian stations of Austerlitz or Bercy, the SNCF is studying the track of two round trips per day. There too, several service stations of modest size are envisaged, in particular Orléans, Tours, Poitiers and Angoulême. The total journey would last between 4h55 and 5h39 and the connection would be made with a Corail train, as for the “Ouigo classic train”, for a maximum capacity of 720 seats.
Finally, between Paris and Rennes, the SNCF plans to offer one or two round trips per day, again with a departure from Bercy or Austerlitz station by Corail train. The total journey time would last between 3h50 and 4h20 and the train would stop at the stations of Pont de Rungis-Orly, Massy-Palaiseau, Versailles, Chartres, Le Mans and Laval.
Travelers will be welcomed aboard old Corail coaches, repainted in fuchsia pink.
Lower and fixed rates
With these three additional lines, the SNCF would therefore extend its slow and more affordable train offer.
Because unlike the TGV, subject to the rule of “yield management”, which sees prices increase according to demand, the prices on these “slow” links are fixed and range from 10 to 49 euros – and from 5 to 8 euros for children under 12 -, with options for luggage or bicycles. A significant price argument in this period of inflation.
To Lyon and Nantes: a “success”
Departing from Austerlitz or Bercy stations, the slow lines serving Lyon and Nantes for a year are considered “very satisfactory” for the SNCF. In one year, according to figures from the railway company, more than a million travelers used them. This has made it possible to attract “new customers who would not have chosen the train”, analyzes Christophe Fanichet, Chairman and CEO of SNCF Voyageurs. All with tight operating costs. So many arguments that encourage the railway company to continue on this path…
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