LGV Atlantique

LGV Atlantique
Route number (SNCF) :	431000 (Paris-Montparnasse-Monts) 429 000 (Courtalain-Conneré)
Course book route (SNCF) :	398 (Paris – Le Mans) 399 (Paris – Tours)
Route length:	279 km
Gauge :	1435 mm ( standard gauge )
Power system :	25 kV 50 Hz  ~
Maximum slope :	16  ‰
Top speed:	300 km / h
Legend 0.4 Paris Gare Montparnasse Route to Chartres 6.4 Tunnel de Fontenay-Nord (306 m) 6.7 Fontenay Tunnel (473 m) 7.2 Fontenay South Tunnel (115 m) 7.2 Tunnel sous le RER B (255 m) 7.6 Tunnel de Sceaux-Nord (205 m) 8.6 Tunnel de Sceaux-Süd (206 m) Châtenay-Malabry tunnel (1047 m) 10.5 Tunnel d'Antony (969 m) 12.2 Tunnel de Verrières-Massy (1386 m) 14.0 from the Grande Ceinture 14.2 Tunnel de Massy (2014 m) 14.4 Massy TGV 17.5 Tunnel de Villebon (659 m) 18.8 Tunnel de Villejuste (4811 m) 27.6 Tunnel de Briis-sous-Forges (1913 m) 56.6 to Auneau 85.5 to Orléans 106.3 Pont sur le Loir (111 m) 129.5 to Bordeaux 130.2 Bifurcation de Courtalain 179.2 LGV Bretagne-Pays de la Loire 181.9 Main route from Paris 137.0 to Bordeaux 162.1 Vendôme Villiers sur Loire 178.1 to Tours 210.0 Tunnel de Vouvray (1496 m) 212.5 Viaduc de Vouvray (387 m) 213.1 Viaduc de la Cissé (312 m) 214.4 Viaduc de la Loire (459 m) 216.0 Paris-Tours route 217.0 Viaduc de la Rochepinard (315 m) 218.3 Viaduc du Cher (370 m) 218.4 Overburden Larçay (210 m) 223.0 LGV Sud Europe Atlantique 232.2 Route of Tours to Bordeaux

The LGV Atlantique , short for Ligne à grande vitesse Atlantique , is a high-speed line in France . It is used by TGV trains and connects Paris on the one hand with Brittany and the Pays de la Loire in the west, and on the other with Aquitaine in the south-west of the country. The line has the shape of a lying Y.

As part of the TGV world record runs on December 5, 1989 and May 18, 1990 , new world speed records for rail vehicles were set on the line that lasted until April 2007 ( V150 ).

The maximum operational speed on the 320 km / h route is 300 km / h.

route

The LGV Atlantique is 279 kilometers long, of which 124 kilometers are on the main route, 53 kilometers on the western branch to Le Mans and 102 kilometers on the southwest branch to Tours. Seven departments are crossed, namely Hauts-de-Seine , Essonne , Yvelines , Eure-et-Loir , Sarthe , Loir-et-Cher and Indre-et-Loire .

The maximum route gradient is 16 ‰.

Trunk line

The trunk line begins south of the Paris Montparnasse train station , in the suburb of Vanves . She uses the 'Coulée Verte' to cross the densely built-up suburban belt of Paris. This is a corridor that was originally intended for the never built railway line from Paris via Gallardon to Chartres . Most of the route runs underground here, with cycle paths and green spaces laid out above it.

At Massy , an old building line runs into the LGV Atlantique. This establishes a connection to the LGV Interconnexion Est and thus to all other French high-speed routes . After the Massy-TGV train station , the line crosses the 4.8-kilometer Villejust tunnel at 270 km / h, from 27.6 km the maximum speed is 300 km / h. This is followed by two more threads at Voves and Bonneval . The trunk line branches off at Courtalain .

Southwest branch line

After Courtalain, the route initially runs south. Shortly after the Vendôme-Villiers-sur-Loir-TGV train station, at km 166.8, there is the point where the world record for rail vehicles was set on May 18, 1990, train 325 of the TGV Atlantique series traveled at 515.3 km / H. After crossing the A10 motorway , the route runs south-west again.

After the tunnel of Vouvray with a length of 1496 meters, three viaducts follow in quick succession, with which the valley of the Loire is crossed. After the junction from Saint-Pierre-des-Corps , which is used by trains in the direction of Tours , there is another viaduct over the Cher River . The southwest branch ends north of the village of Monts .

The 303 kilometer extension from Tours to Bordeaux was built by the construction company Vinci in an operator model . Half of the planned construction cost of 7.2 billion euros was given by the central government and local authorities in the form of a subsidy, the rest was to be raised by Vinci. The costs will be higher; in the meantime, it has been calculated at 7.8 billion euros. In return, the group is allowed to charge usage fees for 35 years. The new line could increase passenger traffic between Paris and Bordeaux by three million to 19 to 20 million travelers per year.

The route was opened in 2017 with the name LGV Sud Europe Atlantique . It will later be extended to Irun in Spain .

Western branch line

The western branch runs from Courtalain to Connerré , about 25 kilometers east of Le Mans . It runs in completely flat terrain and does not require any major engineering structures.

Its extension in the direction of Rennes was opened in 2017 as LGV Bretagne-Pays de la Loire .

Train stations

There are two train stations at LGV Atlantique:

• Massy TGV
• Vendôme-Villiers-sur-Loir TGV

history

planning

Plans for a high-speed line from Paris to the south-west of France were developed from 1975 on the background of expected increases in occupancy. On September 15, 1983, the President of the French Republic announced the construction of the line. At the end of November 1984, construction work began on the first of three tunnels in the suburbs of Paris. The five kilometer long Villejust tunnel is the largest engineering structure on the new line.

At the beginning of 1983 the French government gave the SNCF permission to build the line. In a further step, a law was drawn up on the public economic viability of the new line as a prerequisite for the start of construction. The start-up date was planned for 1989/90, the total costs estimated at twelve billion French francs (other source: 17 billion francs). The traffic potential of the TGV on the new route was forecast at 21 million journeys per year. On January 1, 1983, the SNCF set up a commission to plan the line.

The route was declared to be economically useful and sensible by decree of the French Ministry of Transport of May 25, 1984.

construction

With the construction work on the 474 m long tunnel near Fontenay-aux-Roses , in the suburbs of Paris, the construction work on the line began at the end of November 1984. The plan was to put the 305 km long section between Paris and Le Mans into operation in 1989, with the southern branch to Tours to follow a year later.

The official start of construction at Boinville-le-Gaillard was celebrated on February 15, 1985 . On July 1, 1987, the first tracks were laid near Auneau . The closing of the gap was celebrated on February 2, 1989 near the Vouvray tunnel.

The five-kilometer-long Villejust Tunnel (near Massy-Palaiseau ) was the largest engineering structure on the new line . Contradictions from citizens led u. a. to an underground route of 1.2 kilometers in Paris.

The planned budget (adjusted for inflation) was adhered to.

Installation

In September 1989, the section between Vanves and Connerré (main line and western branch line) was opened.

The official opening took place on September 20, 1989. After angry citizens blocked tracks in the Le Mans train station to protest against the expected price increases for the TGV connections, an opening train for journalists far east of Le Mans came to a halt and drove back to Paris after a long wait. Another opening train reached Le Mans, where hundreds of protest stickers were stuck by demonstrators and then drove back to Paris. In Paris, Prime Minister Rochard gave a speech at the locked Vaugirad train station . Originally, the two trains from Paris were supposed to meet with one train each from Le Croisic and one from Brest , and four of them should travel to Paris.

Regular operations began on September 24, 1989. With the commissioning, the travel time on the 201.6-kilometer route between Paris and Le Mans was reduced to 54 minutes. Due to problems with the on-board computers of the TGV trains, the trains, which were originally supposed to run as a double unit, initially ran as two separate trains with an interval of three minutes. In addition, there were only 27 TGV Atlantique multiple units available, of which 21 were used for scheduled traffic and five served as a reserve, which meant that initially only a very small number of connections could be offered. With the delivery of up to then a total of 42 sets, the timetable offer, with 35 multiple units in scheduled service, was significantly improved from January 28, 1990.

Shortly after the start of operations, more than 100,000 people use the new route every day. On November 26, 1989, the millionth passenger was carried. By May 1990, 4.5 million people were using the TGV Atlantique, with an average utilization of the trains of 70 percent. Depending on the expected occupancy, four different surcharges were levied, each of which included a seat reservation.

On September 30, 1990, the south-western section between Courtalain and Saint-Pierre-des-Corps was put into operation.

The route cut travel time between Paris and Tours by 35 minutes to one hour and three minutes. The new travel time between Paris and Poitiers was 88 minutes (50 minutes shorter), and between Paris and Toulouse the travel time was also reduced by 50 minutes, to five hours and six minutes. 75 minutes were gained between Paris and Bordeaux, with a journey time of 178 minutes on the new line. Initially, 15 TGV trains were offered between Paris and Bordeaux in regular service (excluding peak trains).

World record run on May 18, 1990

On May 18, 1990, the TGV Atlantique train set 325 near Vendôme set a new world speed record for rail vehicles at 515.3 km / h .

Web links

• LGV Atlantique. In: Structurae
• Track plan of the LGV Atlantique

Individual evidence

1. ↑ TGV-Est trains travel 320 km / h . In: Eisenbahn-Revue International . Issue 12, 2004, ISSN  1421-2811 , pp. 576 .
2. ↑ ^{a b} French government approves TGV Atlantic . In: Railway technical review . Issue 4, No. 32 , 1983, pp. 202 .
3. ↑ https://ressources.data.sncf.com/explore/dataset/vitesse-maximale-nominale-sur-ligne/table/
4. ↑ TGV sets world record. Press release from Alstom . April 3, 2007, accessed April 3, 2007 . 
5. ↑ Isabelle Rey-Lefebvre: Vinci décroche le contrat de 7.2 milliards d'euros pour la ligne TGV Tours-Bordeaux . In: Le Monde . March 31, 2010, p. 16 .
6. ↑ ^{a b} Christian Schubert: Vinci is to operate the TGV route . In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung . No. 78 , April 3, 2010, p. 14 .
7. ^ François Hollande opens LGV Sud Europe Atlantique. Railway operations news. Eurailpress, March 2, 2017, accessed March 2, 2017 . 
8. ↑ Macron sends TGV to Bordeaux and Rennes "en Marche"! lok-report News, July 3, 2017, accessed on July 3, 2017 . 
9. ^ TGV Atlantique . In: Railway technical review . Issue 3, No. 34 , 1985, pp. 257 f .
10. ↑ ^{a b c d} Start of construction for TGV-Atlantique . In: Railway technical review . Issue 1/2, No. 34 , 1985, pp. 4 .
11. ↑ TGV Atlantic . In: Railway technical review . Issue 37, No. 37 , 1988, pp. 88 .
12. ↑ Expansion of the TGV network . In: Railway technical review . Issue 9, No. 33 , 1984, pp. 661 .
13. ↑ ^{a b c d} The final triumph . In: Murray Hughes: The High Speed ​​Story. alba-Verlag, Düsseldorf 1994, ISBN 3-87094-151-0 , pp. 215-226.
14. ^ Matti Siemiatycki: Controlling cost overruns on rail projects: a European perspective. In: Eurotransport. Issue 3/2009, ISSN  1478-8217 , p. 30 ff.
15. ^ ^{A b c} French Railways, Commercial Delegation (Ed.): TGV Atlantique . 18-page brochure, August 1990, pp. 3-5.
16. ↑ TGV: world record with over 574 km / h . In: AHEAD . May 2007, ISSN  1438-0099 , p. 57 f .