A Paris-Berlin TGV for the end of 2023. This is the announcement made this morning by the boss of the SNCF, Jean-Pierre Farandou, traveling to Strasbourg to celebrate 15 years of Franco-German cooperation at high speed. This new line will be launched in agreement with Deutsche Bahn, the German public railway company, using German ICE high-speed trains.
“It makes sense because we see that people are willing to take longer and longer journeys. There are really people who are ready to stay five hours, six hours, seven hours in a train”, he explained, adding that “Paris-Berlin is seven hours”.
“A few years ago, we found it a bit long and we were afraid of not having anyone. There are more and more people for whom this is not a problem, so much the better! “, he launched, emphasizing that “taking the train is a way of reconciling mobility and the protection of nature”.
At launch, one round trip per day, via Frankfurt, will be scheduled between Paris and Berlin. The TGV-Intercités director at SNCF Alain Krakovitch specified that a second round trip could also be set up later. “It’s quite symbolic of the evolution of our society, and of the desire of many of our fellow citizens to favor the train,” noted the manager.
A night line also open
“The observation that we are making today is that Paris-Milan and Paris-Barcelona have astonishing occupancy rates: at Paris-Milan, the offer has doubled with the arrival of Trenitalia (the public company Italian, which came to compete with the SNCF TGVs in December, Ed), and despite that, the trains are full, ”he explained. He adds that the SNCF “must be able to have the same thing on Paris-Berlin! »
The Paris-Berlin high-speed day train will be added to a night train link between the two capitals which is to be operated by Austrian railways ÖBB -in cooperation with SNCF and Deutsche Bahn-, also from the end of 2023. “It will be the same time, the night train and the day train. We will have the choice according to taste, ”summarized Jean-Pierre Farandou. “We make Europe somewhere, the Europe of everyday life”, he launched. “We are making peace in Europe with the railway! »
“I am convinced that we need more railways in Europe and a strong Europe needs a strong interconnection on the rails”, added his colleague from Deutsche Bahn, Richard Lutz. The development of rail is “essential to achieve climate objectives”, he stressed.
SNCF and Deutsche Bahn have been running high-speed trains, TGV and ICE, between France and Germany together since the opening of the first section of the Paris-Strasbourg high-speed line in June 2007. The two companies have together transported, in fifteen years, 25 million people on Paris-Frankfurt, Paris-Stuttgart-Munich and Frankfurt-Marseille, the train now beating the plane on the Paris-Frankfurt axis.