Fast track to the future TGV speeds on

FAST TRACK TO THE FUTURE

The TGV is almost middle aged. The very first TGV high-speed rail service was officially launched 30 years ago on 21 September 1981 between Paris and Lyons. Robert Williams reports on the growth of Europe’s high-speed rail network .

The first generation TGVs ran at a maximum speed of 260 km/h, eventually raised to 300 km/h, which is now the benchmark running speed for all TGV-type trains on new lines in France and on the European high-speed rail network

The TGV is probably the best known high-speed railway in Europe, but it was actually Italy that built Europe’s first highspeed line in 1977 between Florence and Rome. The 1974 petrol crisis forced many European countries to consider investing in modes of transport which did not guzzle fossil fuels.

But it was France that took up the challenge most enthusiastically. The TGV network now snakes across the country in every direction from the capital. There are connections to Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands and – through the Channel Tunnel – the UK. In Europe today, only Spain has more high-speed track – almost 2000km – than France. Its first AVE route was Madrid to Seville, opened in 1992. Since 2008 the 621km route from Madrid to Barcelona has cut journey times from more than six hours to just two and a half hours. The midway point on the route, Zaragoza, has become a key meeting point for business people from Spain’s two most important cities. The line is being extended into France to join the European network.

The original high-speed lines in France, Germany and Italy were seen largely as a means of overcoming bottlenecks on the national networks. These bottlenecks limited capacity, caused conflicts between types of traffic and reduced reliability. Higher speeds were in many respects an accidental, but very positive, by-product of improved reliability.

Most of these transport infrastructures have been developed under national policy premises. In order to establish a single, multimodal network that integrates land, sea and air transport networks throughout the Union, the European policymakers decided to establish the trans-European transport network, allowing goods and people to circulate quickly and easily between member states and assuring international connections.

European interoperability

The European Union has made the extension of the continent’s high-speed rail network a priority as part of its Trans-European Networks-Transport programme, know as TEN-T. It aims to make Europe’s high-speed rail networks interoperable, whether they are newly built lines or upgrades of older infrastructure. The total length of the TEN-T high-speed network will be 30,000km, of which 20,000km is expected to be in operation by 2020.

The first official recognition of a European HSR network was in the 1990s, when the European Commission designated a high speed rail network as part of the Trans European Network – Transport (TEN-T). The TEN-T network HSR corridors were based on the national networks but extended lines throughout Europe. The majority of funding for TEN-T projects (approximately 90 per cent) is provided by national and local governments.

This international HSR network is gradually taking shape. Major building blocks of the network, including the PBKAL (ParisBrussels-Köln-Amsterdam-London) network, and France’s TGV Est have recently been completed. Additional elements including the Lyon-Turin tunnel linking Italy and the Perpignan-Barcelona line linking Spain to the network are under construction.

If the European Commission gets its way, Europe’s high-speed railway network will treble in length over the next 20 years. By 2050, the network will be complete. There will be a true single market for passengers, who will make most middle-distance journeys by rail

Spain plans to lay 10,000km of new track by 2020 so that 90 per cent of Spaniards have a high-speed rail station within 50km of their home. Sweden is building a line between Stockholm and Gothenburg. In fact, of the 30 projects prioritised under TEN-T, 14 relate to high-speed rail. Supported projects include the new LyonTrieste- Divaca/Koper–Ljubljana–Budapest–Ukrainian border railway axis.

In March 2011 the Commission published a roadmap for transport policy which called for a 60 per cent reduction in carbon emissions from the sector by 2050 – a target which cannot be achieved without persuading people to travel by train rather than by car or plane.

Zaragoza station, Spain

Andreas Hambrecht, head of international business, Deutsche Bahn, said: “Germany has benefited enormously from improved connectivity and regional economic growth, which high-speed rail brings. Germany’s high-speed rail network is a vital piece of our economic infrastructure, connecting a number of city regions with each other and promoting low-emission travel across the country and Europe. After almost 20 years of operations the high-speed trains ‘ICE’ of Deutsche Bahn account for around two-thirds of all long-distance rail transport services in Germany.”

With such high growth in traffic between member states, the cost of completing and modernising a well-performing transEuropean network is substantial. The cost of EU infrastructure development to match the demand for transport has been estimated at over €1.5 trillion between 2010 and 2030.

The number of passengers on German, Belgian, Spanish, French, Italian and British lines increased from 15.3 billion passengerkilometres in 1990 to 92.33 billion in 2008. High-speed rail makes up 40 per cent of medium distance journeys. For journeys of less than four hours the train is very competitive. With the high-speed Madrid-Barcelona train taking just two hours and 40 minutes, the air market share went down from 80 per cent to 40 per cent almost overnight.

Ahead in the East

Yet Europe still trails behind Japan and China. The rate of growth in China is astonishing. In 2008 it had just 649km of track, now it has 8400km – four times more than Japan, which built the first high-speed lines in the 1960s. By 2014 China is likely to have a high-speed rail network of nearly 19,000km. For some time now China has been developing high-speed rail infrastructure both within its own country and in other parts of the world too. Ambitious plans to link Europe with Beijing cannot be dismissed as pie in the sky.

But at least European countries understand that rapid, electric, inter-city rail systems will be essential to developing competitive 21st century economies as oil supplies dwindle, highways and airports face increasing congestion, and pressure to reduce carbon emissions rises.

For those still not convinced that highspeed rail is the solution, an American energy writer laments the fact that China and Europe will, “in a decade or two have significantly reduced dependence on imported oil, created tens of millions of new jobs, and saved their countries trillions of dollars by vastly improving the productivity of their economies thanks to a low-carbon transportation sector that moves people and goods at speeds that could one day hit 300 miles per hour, or more.”

For over 100 years the romance of train travel has inspired countless films, books and diaries, from the luxurious Orient Express which ran from Paris to Istanbul and the old steam trains in India, to the Deerstalker Express to the Scottish Highlands. Now it looks like high-speed long-haul rail promises to open up new nadventures – at a 21st century pace.