This French TGV line, the busiest in the mainline rail network in all of Europe, will be completely closed for 4 days.
Regular or occasional SNCF travelers will need to note these dates in their diaries. The management of the railway company has announced that it will have to adapt the transport plan for its TGVs across the entire South-East axis in November 2024. But if a very busy line will be particularly affected, others will also be affected!
The explanation? Work to be carried out to equip the Paris-Lyon high-speed line with a new signaling system. The Paris-Lyon TGV line, which represents a third of rail traffic in France and which is the busiest in Europe, will thus be closed from Friday November 8 at 11 p.m. to Wednesday November 13, 2024 at 4 a.m., i.e. for a duration total of 101 hours. This complete closure of the Paris-Lyon LGV will have a strong impact on TGV InOui and Ouigo traffic along the entire South-East axis during these four days. SNCF Voyageurs recommends that users postpone their departure or arrival dates.
The regions Occitanie, Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur, Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, Burgundy Franche-Comté and Grand Est will be impacted by this closure of the Paris-Lyon LGV for 4 days. Eabout 30% traffic will only be provided on this entire South-East axis. In detail, a significant reduction in TGVs which run from Paris to major stations such as Montpellier, Marseille, Toulon, Annecy, Chambéry, Grenoble, Dijon, Strasbourg and Metz is to be expected.
10 major stations on the Paris-Lyon LGV will also not be served on the South-East axis: Lille Europe, TGV Haute-Picardie, Roissy Aéroport Charles de Gaulle 2 TGV, Marne-la-Vallée Chessy, Massy TGV, Le Creusot-Montceau-Montchanin TGV, Mâcon-Loché TGV, Lyon Saint-Exupéry TGV, Valence TGV, and Nîmes-Pont-du-Gard.
Certain services between the South-East and other regions will simply not be provided, namely the Nantes-Lyon-Montpellier, Lyon-Rennes, Le Havre-Marseille or even Lille-Marseille service. The TGVs from Paris which serve Marseille and Toulon will not go further, excluding service from the Arcs Draguignan stations to Nice. The same will apply to the TGVs from Paris which serve Montpellier, excluding service to the stations of Toulouse and Perpignan. Other connections between the South-East and Pays-de-la-Loire, Brittany, Normandy, Center Val-de-Loire and Hauts-de-France will not be provided, these will be communicated in details soon.
The Grand-Est axis will be servedith a reduction in trains, as on the Paris-Strasbourg or Lyon-Metz routes. In addition, users will have to undergo a significant increase in their journey time: it will be doubled on the Paris-Lyon routes (count 4h30 instead of 2 hours), Paris-Marseille (count 7h20 instead of 3 hours) or even Paris-Grenoble (count 6h instead of 3 hours).
Finally, certain international lines will not be served. These are the TGVs on the South-East axis towards Spain, Italy and Belgium, such as Paris-Barcelona, Brussels-Marseille or even Paris-Milan. The TGVs serving Switzerland (Lyria), Germany and Luxembourg will be maintained with a reduction in supply on the Paris-Geneva, Luxembourg-Marseille, or even Mannheim-Marseille routes.