Bordeaux – Irun railway line
The double-track railway line Bordeaux – Irun represents the track connection between the French city of Bordeaux and the Spanish border town of Irun . It runs within the three departments Gironde , Landes and Pyrénées-Atlantiques and has a length of 235 km. It is used by both TGV high-speed trains and TER regional trains as well as freight trains. In the past, a large number of branch lines from other companies branched off from this line. Today there are only two other important routes: At Le Teich to Arcachon and in Bayonne to Pau .
Route
From Bordeaux, the route initially runs in a south-westerly direction, before turning south after 40 kilometers. It runs straight to Morcenx train station due to the flat terrain. Behind Dax , the route adapts to the slightly hilly country with slightly winding lines. The maximum speed here is only 110 km / h to 140 km / h. From Biarritz , the Bay of Biscay can be seen from the route . From the border town of Hendaye to Irún there is a parallel track in regular and Iberian broad gauge . The maximum speed on this two-and-a-half kilometer section is only 30 km / h due to static problems on the bridge over the Bidasoa .
history
The first section was opened from Bordeaux in 1841 to Le Teich. In 1854 the 105 km long line to Dax was completed and put into operation, the following year to Bayonne. In 1864 the line finally reached the Spanish border at Irun. The owner and operator of the route was the private railway company Compagnie des Chemins de fer du Midi .
The line was electrified from 1926 to 1929 with direct current of a voltage of 1500 volts.
The approximately 66 kilometers long, apart from one wide bend, straight section from Lamothe to Morcenx was the test route for high-speed journeys of the SNCF from the mid-1950s to the 1970s. The journeys began at Facture station, in the 1950s still without the addition of biganos. Also the world record runs of the SNCF on 28/29. March 1955 with 331 km / h took place there.
On the same section of the route, the SNCF TGV 001 reached a speed of 318 km / h in 1972.
business
The route is now served by TER Aquitaine under line number 61 (Hendaye – Dax – Bordeaux) with ten to thirteen train connections daily. There are also TGV trains to Irún and Tarbes (branching off in Dax) .
