TGV
The first models of TGV in commercial use were bright orange.
The TGV is France's train à grande vitesse; literally "high-speed train". Developed and operated by SNCF, the French national railway company, it connects Paris to cities in France and in some other neighbouring countries, such as Belgium, Germany and Switzerland. TGVs or trains based on the TGV design also operate in the Netherlands, South Korea, Spain, the United Kingdom and the United States.
History
The idea of the TGV was first mooted in the 1960s. The first prototype, known as TGV 001, was powered by gas turbines and generated its own electricity from oil, but after the 1973 energy crisis and the consequent sharp rise in the price of oil this was deemed impractical. The first fully electric prototype was completed in 1974, with the final version delivered in 1980 and the service opened to the public between Paris to Lyon on September 27, 1981.
The TGV is not the world's first commercial high-speed service, as the Japanese Shinkansen connected Tokyo and Osaka almost 15 years earlier on October 1, 1964.
Technical details
The TGV is one of the fastest commercially operating conventional trains in the world. Under test conditions, the TGV has reached speeds of 515.3 km/h (320.2 mph), setting a world record in 1990.
The TGV runs on dedicated tracks known as LGV (ligne à grande vitesse, "high-speed line"), allowing speeds of up to 320 km/h in normal operation on the newest lines. TGV trains can also run on conventional tracks, but only at slower speeds. They now serve around 200 destinations in France and abroad.
The high-speed lines tend to avoid city centres, instead calling at out-of-town stations in suburban areas or the open countryside. This has necessitated the construction of a number of major new railway stations, some of which have been major architectural achievements in their own right. Avignon TGV station (right), opened in 2001, has won particular praise as one of the most remarkable stations on the network, with a spectacular 340m-long glazed roof.
TGV trains are built by Alstom.
Network
France has around 1,200 km of TGV track built over the past 20 years, with four new lines either proposed or under construction.
Existing lines
- LGV Sud-Est (Paris-Gare de Lyon to Lyon-Perrache), the first LGV (opened 1981)
- LGV Atlantique (Paris to Tours and Le Mans) (opened 1990)
- LGV Nord Europe (Paris-Gare du Nord to Lille and Brussels and on towards London, Amsterdam and Cologne) (opened 1993)
- LGV Méditerranée (Paris-Gare de Lyon to Marseille-Saint-Charles) (opened 2001)
Planned lines
- LGV Est (Paris-Strasbourg) (under construction, to open 2006)
- LGV Rhin-Rhône (Strasbourg-Lyon)
- Barcelona-Perpignan-Montpellier, which would connect the TGV to the Spanish AVE network
- Lyon-Chambéry-Turin, which would extend the TGV into Italy
Amsterdam and Cologne are already served by TGV trains running on ordinary track, though these connections are being upgraded to high-speed rail. London is presently served by Eurostar TGV trains running on a mixture of high-speed and normal-speed tracks via the Channel Tunnel Rail Link.
TGV outside France
TGV technology has been adopted in a number of other countries:
- Thalys, connecting France to Belgium and Holland
- Eurostar, connecting Great Britain to France and Belgium
- AVE, the high-speed network in Spain
- KTX, the high-speed network in South Korea
- Acela, a higher-speed corridor in the United States loosely based on TGV technology
Impact
TGV lines have largely replaced air traffic between connected cities. Brussels–Paris in 90 minutes has increased commuting between the two capitals, and likewise the Paris–Marseille line greatly reduced travel time recently. Towns such as Tours are becoming a part of "TGV commuter belt".