BIG timetable change in France: 11/12/2011

nltrainer
Traveller
1416 comments

Posted 13 years ago

Every year the railways change their timetables, on some sunday in december. This year there will be big changes in France, as they turn into what about anywhere else already has: a ''takt'' plan, or horaire cadencee. That means that trains run -more or less- on the same timings every hour.
But this; is and remains France, so many local lines cannot have a train ev. hour or even ev 2 hours. In that case it will not mean many more trains, but that the trains running will stick to same minyute-timings, as gfas as they think is possible. For France this is an enormous revolution as it has never been the case. But some regions have already turned into that in the last years.
The meaning of this is that most times published here will likely go changed from then on. it might even get a little easier to travel longer distance by using local trains (TER) in stead of those TGV's that ask a reservation and only have limited seats for IR-users.
By experience: dec is often a month where lightning strikes are very frequent, as it is very hard to even please a FR railwayworker and the unions there do like their strikes. Or they simple take any opportunity to get a few more euro in the wagepacket. Unlike Italy, there is as of yet No garanteed minimum service then-but the president wants that as well.
Even when they srike, it does not mean that no trains run-but you cannot be sure at all as to which yes or no.
When I travelled across Fr last week, using an IR, it seems that ticket checks were on eternal strike anyway-hardly did anyone turn up to look into my nice ticket. The booklet with the trips-list was never checked at all. but that is no garantee for you.