2023-10-06 19:43:00
The duck-billed nose of the TGV M slowly advances under the immense cylindrical hall of the South-East European technicentre in Conflans, near the Gare de Lyon in Paris. The train of the future TGV, the fifth generation of high-speed trains designed by Alstom for the SNCF, was in its future Parisian maintenance base on Friday morning. Indeed, to create a high-speed service, you need lines (as straight as possible) and trains, but also maintenance centers where it will be possible to carry out repairs and maintenance operations.
A constraint, not very technical but more severe, requires a return to a technician every 29 hours of use in commercial service to empty the chemical toilets… i.e. every five Paris-Marseille round trips, quickly completed in three days.
Longer TGVs
After Conflans, the technician centers in Lyon and Marseille will be renovated and modernized as well as those throughout France following the deliveries of the first wave of 115 TGVs ordered from Alstom, which should take place over ten years. Note that minor improvements will have to be made on the platforms of the stations served. The length of a new train is 202 meters compared to 198 previously. With the two shorter power cars, these 4 meters make it possible to add a car, or one hundred additional seats.
This fifth generation of TGV will not be one of speed records, assured Jean-Pierre Farandou, president and CEO of SNCF, to Clément Beaune, Minister of Transport, who came to welcome the TGV M. The equipment was first tested in Czech Republic on the Velim test line where it reaches 220 km/h. But it has been circulating on the national network since June for a battery of tests and circulations with a view to its approval.
320 km/h and less energy consumed
However, the new train already matches the speed of other TGVs, while consuming 20% less energy than the previous generation. Thus, on September 14, at 3:47 p.m., the Alstom TGV M pre-series trainset No. 997 (made up of 11 bodies) reached 320 km/h during a test run on the high-speed line (LGV ) Rhine-Rhone. This line of around a hundred kilometers is favored by the tests, because the traffic there is not as dense as on Paris-Lyon or Paris-Bordeaux.
Authorization to travel at 320 km/h in commercial service will require another validation, that of reaching this speed of more than 10%, or 350 km/h, in complete safety of course. Until then, the four pre-production trainsets dedicated to testing will cover 1 million kilometers before the first passenger takes their place on board.
#future #TGV