The complete renovation of the old MI84 trains of the RER B will not take place for the 2024 Olympics. A scandal for the users of this dilapidated Ile-de-France line.
The Paris Olympic Games in 2024 will not delight RER B users. While 42 kilometers of aging tracks were to be renovated by Alstom, i.e. a quarter of the RER B rolling stock dating from the end of the 1970s, only part of the 31 MI84 trainsets will be put back into service for the occasion, “but with light improvement works and without refrigerated ventilation or video surveillance“, announcement The Parisian. In total, only fifteen trains will be entitled to better lighting, windows and seats replaced for Olympic Games 2024. For the rest, “outdated” seats will still be part of the landscape of the RER B, to the chagrin of its users:
The 900,000 users of the second busiest line in Europe, but also the least punctual in the entire Paris region, will not have finished with the crowded and overheated trains of the RER Bknown for its countless breakdowns and delays… Tourists, on the horizon of the Olympic Games which take place in the summer (from July 26 to August 11, 2024), will discover the capital in deplorable conditions, with RER B crowded, with threadbare seats, often dirty and also overheated by the sun, as the photos of users posted on social networks regularly show.
“It’s a living scandal. This contract has not been respected by Alstom”, annoyed the president of Île-de-France Mobilités Valérie Pécresse, who preferred to give up, “by mutual agreement with the RATP”, to the development contract, in the face of excessive delays on the part of Alstom, a delay which according to it goes back more than four years!
The RER B route will serve many sporting event sites in the north of Ile-de-France, whether it is the Olympic athletes’ village but also the Stade de France, for example, to get to the swimming and athletics events of the Olympic Games. of 2024.