There are only two reasons that push users to take the daily train in Gironde at the end of the year: either the love of rail transport or the absence of an alternative. The others abandon the rail. Since the end of October, SNCF has recorded 781 delays in New Aquitaine and has accumulated last minute cancellations, especially in Gironde. The regularity rate has fallen to 85% in the last two months, six points less than in 2022.
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For TER fans, daily mobility has become a lottery: every day announcements of overpressure occur on the five Gironde lines (Médoc, Arcachon, Libourne, North and South Gironde). Exasperated, users are warning of a deterioration of the situation, particularly in the north of Bordeaux, which has reached its peak for several weeks.
The SNCF waited until Tuesday, December 19 to react. During a press conference bringing together its Réseau and Voyageurs subsidiaries, the operator blamed the four storms that occurred this fall. “The impact we suffered is greater than that of the 1999 storm”, notes Jean-Luc Gary, territorial director SNCF Réseau Nouvelle-Aquitaine. The 1,000 trees that fell on the tracks and 160 impacts recorded in four weeks on the trains are responsible for the network malfunctions according to his SNCF Voyageurs counterpart Hervé Lefèvre.
Daily cancellations
« Trees continued to fall after storms. A simple gust of wind was enough to bring them down “, he says. To the extent that “the maintenance workshops were overwhelmed by the volume of shocks. » Landslides and floods are also to blame. In total, a quarter of the 200 regional trainsets were disabled and a dozen are still disabled today.
The strikes also disrupted traffic until December 11 in South Aquitaine and until December 13 in Poitou-Charentes. The warning has not yet been lifted around the railway hub of Bordeaux, where tensions are still very high. Because if the return of damaged trains is organized, the Gironde network remains mired in persistent calamities. The evil is neither new nor temporary.
You just need to consult the day’s journeys on the SNCF Connect application to understand the state of the situation: almost half of the trains are canceled this December 19 on the five Gironde lines due to lack of equipment or staff. “We have never experienced a period as critical as this! »worries Jessica Lenié, railway worker and spokesperson for the CSE TER Nouvelle-Aquitaine. “The Region has increased traffic but the conditions to respond to it are not given. We make 90,000 people travel per day without having the means to do so. »
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« Vocation crisis »
The fault lies with an obsolete network that is unsuitable for the growth in attendance. Result: the cancellation rate climbs to around 7% in Gironde, compared to 5% in the region according to SNCF. “The network needs heavy investment, that’s no mystery to anyone. These investments will only yield results over time, we cannot change the appearance of a 3,000 kilometer network with the snap of a finger. », warns Jean-Luc Gary.
For its part, the regional council called on the SNCF to react, even threatening to no longer pay rail tolls, already considered too expensive. “ We requested and obtained a powerful and immediate recovery plan, calling for reinforcements on the repairs of damaged trains, which aims to restore a return to normal no later than the first half of January. », he writes to users. In the meantime, SNCF is forced to pay penalties to the Region, since the objectives of the operating contract have not been achieved. This year they amount to 2.5 million euros.
Workforce under pressure
Another problem that seems to threaten the railway operator: the lack of manpower. “ There is a shortage of personnel to maintain the network, maintenance teams deal with ever-larger areas », relays Jessica Lenié. “People leave training courses because they become aware of the very difficult conditions. We are facing a vocation crisis. » An observation shared by the unions and the Region… but not by the SNCF.
“We have made 170 recruitments in 2023. There is no shortage, we are attractive”replies Hervé Lefèvre, referring to the 850 drivers employed in the region. “What we don’t have is a team to respond to the exceptional storms we’ve experienced. » Between meteorological and social depressions, the barometer in any case continues to agitate. New strikes are announced in the region this December 22, before others in January.
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2023-12-19 16:21:24
#Gironde #TERs #tested #storms #obsolescence
