This busiest TGV line in France will close during the November 11 bridge, causing major disruptions throughout France.
While the French impatiently await the next long weekends and public holidays in the fall in order to treat themselves to a getaway worthy of the name, bad news has just fallen for those who are used to taking the TGV towards the sun . The busiest line in Europe, which sees a third of rail traffic in France, will close for 4 days in the middle of the long weekend of the public holiday of Monday November 11.
From November 9 to 12, 2024, it will not be possible to take the LGV from Paris to Lyon, nor from Lyon to Paris. Indeed, this High Speed Line will be completely closed to allow a thousand SNCF employees to equip the line with a new signaling system intended to improve the regularity and reliability of trains. Consequently, the railway company announced that it would adapt its transport plan on all traffic on the South-East axis.
During this period, it will be necessary to plan for “a significant increase in travel time via the classic Paris-Lyon line which remains open” but with a reduction in the number of trains. And that’s not all: only 30% of all TGV lines on the South-East axis will be in circulation. “All services from Paris to Occitanie and Provence Alpes-Côte d’Azur are therefore affected. Services to Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, Burgundy Franche-Comté and the Grand Est will also be impacted,” details the SNCF in its press release.
Trains from Paris to the south-east will stop, for example, in Toulon and will not serve Nice. As for trains from Paris to Occitanie, they will stop in Montpellier and will not serve Perpignan. These 6 stations on the southeast axis will not be served: Le Creusot-Montceau-Montchanin TGV, Mâcon-Loché TGV, Lyon Saint-Exupéry TGV, Valence TGV, Montpellier-Sud-de-France and Nîmes-Pont-du -Gard.
To complicate matters, the disruptions do not stop at the South-East axis: certain services between this axis and 5 other regions of France (Pays-de-la-Loire, Brittany, Normandy, Center Val-de- Loire and Hauts-de-France), will simply not be insured. “Nantes-Lyon-Montpellier, Lyon-Rennes, Le Havre-Marseille or even Lille-Marseille will not be insured,” explains the railway company. These disruptions also impact the international lines Eurostar, Trenitalia and Renfe: no Paris-Barcelona, nor Brussels-Marseille nor Paris-Milan. Only the TGV Lyria to Switzerland are maintained, but with a reduction in trains.
Paris-Lyon regulars will therefore have to anticipate this Armistice weekend of November 11 because they will need a travel time multiplied by two to reach these two attractive cities, where the LGV offered precious time savings. The same for travelers who plan to go to the south of France, you will have to be patient with long journey times and certain stations not served…