8:03 am, the TER 88 505 leaves Metz. On board, “frontas” who go to their workplace. Through the masks, the conversation revolves around the weather, the curfew and a possible re-containment. Another one, perhaps too much. Steam has formed on the windows, the landscape scrolls incognito. Hagondange, Thionville, the Luxembourg border, Bettembourg, Howald.
It is 8:53 am, the TER is entering Luxembourg-Ville station. It is raining in the Grand Ducal capital. Remote-controlled by repeated gestures, passengers rush to their connection or to the exit, where the new section of the tramway inaugurated on December 13, 2020 now allows them to reach the Kirchberg business district without having to take out the umbrella.
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9:01 am, the tram,free like all public transport in Luxembourg since March 30, 2020, leaves central station , its terminus, direction Place de Paris then Place de Metz and Hamilius.
Samia lives in Yutz and works as a sales assistant in a downtown ready-to-wear store. She resumes work after two weeks of closure imposed between December 26 and January 10. “I am still on partial unemployment three days this week before resuming full time on Tuesday to prepare for the sales (from January 20 to February 16). She takes the tram to her place of work from the station. “It’s practical and fast, not like the bus before”.
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Seven minutes and the train drops it off at Hamilius. It is 9h08.
Jonathan works in a bank in Kirchberg with “slightly” shifted hours. “I chose to start a little later in the morning so that I could travel sitting in the train from Metz (laughs). I’m cooler, there are fewer people and therefore less risk of being contaminated by Covid-19. The arrival of the tram at the station is a real plus for me. I save about fifteen minutes per trip, or half an hour per day, which is far from negligible. ”
From LuxExpo train station to Kirchberg in 25 minutes. Photo RL / Armand FLOHR Étoile, Faïencerie, Théâtre, Rout Breck – Pafendall, Philharmonie, Parlement européen, Université, Bibliothèque nationale. 9h23. Jonathan gets off the tram, at the foot of the building where his office is located, where the accountant takes precedence over the border worker.
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The arrival of the tram at Luxembourg central station in December now allows cross-border workers to jump from the TER to the tram in a few minutes and reach the Kirchberg business district in record time. 55 minutes from Thionville station and 1h20 from Metz station.
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