The Paris-Orléans-Limoges-Toulouse SNCF line seen by a reader from Le Populaire du Center and a former railway worker
The Polt never ceases to return to the forefront of the media scene. Raymond Beaune, an avid reader of Popular of the Center and former Sncf, we sent a letter which brings a very interesting contribution to the subject. And who offers another point of view on this file.
“If I share the overwhelming findings of the service with the abolition of trains, the modifications of timetables with longer journey times, the repeated delays and the equipment used over 40 years old, he explains in the preamble, I does not consider that the line’s infrastructure has been neglected in recent years. With 2 billion euros of work in 5 years, it is the classic line on which Sncf Réseau has invested the most.”
For the former railway worker, the problems do not come from the line itself, but from the operator of the line, citing for example the measures taken to minimize the effects of freezing. “How can train cancellations, timetable shifts and longer journey times be accepted by preventive ‘frost’ measures which are applied from December to March even if, for 3 weeks, the minimum temperature has not fallen below 5° C. Frost on catenaries is common in winter, but until this year it did not cause trains to be canceled, only a few minutes late.”
Optimistic about the future of Polt
Raymond Beaune remains optimistic about the future of Polt. But he invites elected officials and business leaders to curb their enthusiasm when they make statements. “The new trains expected in 2026 were to reduce the journey time to 2 h 50 with a single stop, it could be lowered from 3 to 4 minutes after work to raise the speed to 200 km/h over 40 km on both sides. On the other hand, to manage to do the 400 km in 2 h 30, as envisaged by the mayor of Limoges, i.e. an average speed of 160 km/h, it would be necessary to drive at 200 km/h over the entire route, excluding the First 50 km from Paris due to RER C traffic.”
Two (new) Intercités canceled on the Paris-Orléans-Limoges-Toulouse line for two weeks
Receive our eco newsletter by email and find the latest news from economic players in your region.
NL {“path”:”mini-inscription/PC_Decideur”,”accessCode”:”14245685″,”allowGCS”:”true”,”bodyClass”:”ripo_generic”,”contextLevel”:”KEEP_ALL”,”filterMotsCles”: “3|10|13|107″,”template”:”generic”,”hasEssentiel”:”true”,”idArticle”:”4245685″,”idArticlesList”:”4245685″,”idDepartement”:”306″, “idZone”:”39577″,”motsCles”:”3|10|13|107″,”premium”:”false”,”pubs”:”banniere_haute|article|article2|article3″,”site”:”PC “,”sousDomain”:”www”,”urlTitle”:”the-line-sncf-paris-orleans-limoges-toulouse-seen-from-a-popular-reader-from-the-centre-and-former-railway worker “}
For Raymond Beaune, such a solution “would require major work to modify the route of the line”, involving “either closing the line for several years, which is not possible, or building a new line and therefore spending several Billions of Euro’s”.
Finally, the former railway worker has a regret. And a big one. “A high-speed line project between Poitiers and Limoges had been announced, he recalled. He had just obtained the declaration of public utility (DUP), the route of the line was defined, the service by TGV was programmed, it was vigorously defended by many people, the financing of 1.5 billion euros was starting to be sought, everything seemed to be on the right track, but that was without counting on the opponents of the project…”
“Without these demonstrations and with the strong support of the President of the Republic at the time, today the Limoges-Poitiers bar would be in service, Limoges and Brive would be much more attractive, Bernardeaud and Legrand would not consider moving their headquartersnew companies would have settled and the Limousin would have gained inhabitants instead of losing them.”
With ifs, we could have put Paris in a bottle. But let’s recognize that this point of view is shared by a certain number of Limousins.
The mediator