High speed rail heads south

Rob Williams reports on another ‘grand projet’ for France’s rail system.

HIGH SPEED RAIL HEADS SOUTH

France is continuing to push ahead with the extension of its high-speed rail network. The biggest of the three projects currently under way is the new line between Tours, where the TGV heading south from Paris ends, and trains return to the ‘classic’ line, and Bordeaux, on the Atlantic coast.

The Tours-Bordeaux High-Speed Rail Project was proposed as part of an integrated plan for developing national and European high-speed railway networks. It is an extension to the LGV Atlantique, the high-speed line from Paris to western France that opened in 1989–1990. The current line runs westward to Le Mans towards Brittany, and the second branch runs south to Tours.

The new South-Europe Atlantic (SEA) highspeed rail line between Tours and Bordeaux is Europe’s largest construction site. This is another grand projet of grand proportions. There are 302km of track to lay, and a further 38km of connections to existing lines. Construction involves building 24 bridges over rivers and valleys, as well as underpasses (one almost two kilometres long), and gradeseparated junctions.

Ultimately, it is expected that 18 million travellers (a 20 per cent increase from the current number) per year will take advantage of the new line, which will bring people and regions closer together.

At the moment, the journey time from Paris to Bordeaux by train is a little more

than three hours; when this project is finished, it will take just over two. Alain Juppé, mayor of Bordeaux and previously prime minister of France, is an enthusiast (unsurprisingly, perhaps, for Bordeaux will pay next to nothing for it). He thinks the number of rail passengers coming to his city will rise from 9m to 20m a year and hopes to persuade a number of big companies to open national headquarters in Bordeaux.

The project is also a response to the heavy traffic on the existing rail lines. Lines are most efficiently used when all trains travel at the same speed and have identical stops. The significant speed difference between TGV trains, which run on the existing tracks at speeds up to 220 km/h, and slower freight and regional trains, which share the same track, means that the gap between these trains is longer and there is congestion.

Such potential benefits will be magnified when the next link in the high-speed network is put in place between Bordeaux and Toulouse, although work on that link will not begin before 2020, and another proposed extension – to Spain – has been postponed indefinitely.

Doing it differently

For the first time France is using a publicprivate partnership – in which essentially a single company designs, finances, builds, runs and maintains it – to create a major railway line, though it is already common for autoroutes. Réseau Ferré de France (RFF) awarded the concession contract to LISEA, a special purpose company promoted by VINCI in June 2011. LISEA is owned by Vinci (33.4 per cent), CDC Infrastructure (25.4 per cent), SOJAS (22 per cent) and AXA Private Equity (19.2 per cent).

Vinci is working to a tight schedule, and this means doing things differently. Normally on a project of this type work is carried out sequentially. Studies are completed, then land is acquired, suppliers commissioned and so on. This time, relying on information technology, Vinci is doing several things at once. Not all land has been finally transferred, and one of the 222 wildlife species specified as requiring protection could yet turn up in unexpected places.

Earthmoving has been on a heroic scale: four times more earth has been excavated than in the construction of the Channel Tunnel. The works are concentrated next to the A10 autoroute, which has been re-routed in places. Flotillas of heavy equipment alternate along the route with thousands of tonnes of pre-positioned ballast.

As the infrastructure works draw to a close, the South Europe Atlantic high-speed line has entered the railway works phase, with the first 432-metre continuously welded rails (CWRs) laid along the track bed of the line near the railway works staging base at Villognon, in the Charente département.

An interesting feature of the project is the innovation involved in its construction, from the CWR ‘pusher’ wagon to the remotely controlled ballast cars, or ‘laying machines’ that continuously place the sleepers. These techniques enhance the safety of these operations and accelerate the construction works.

The new method for laying the continuous welded rails is unique in Europe. A pushing wagon with two telescopic arms, each with 16t of tractive force, is used to unload the 400m-long rails. In synchronisation a spider digger positions the rails on guides placed on the sleepers.

In total 412km of rails have been laid this way. With this new technique, it is no longer necessary to install a temporary track, bringing cost and time savings. And because the new rail line is laid directly in 400m-plus sections, it took only three days to lay the 42 rails stored on the train – measuring 8.4km of track. This process also presents substantial safety advantages by automating many manual handling operations.

It’s all down to innovation. Innovation and determination. And both stem from the private finance model that is being used to build the project, according to Laurent Cavrois, president of project concessionaire Lisea.

“We have to finance and build this railway and then operate and maintain it for 44 years,” he explained. “We have a 50-year concession, six years of which will be construction.” And as Lisea doesn’t start recouping any of its investment until it starts charging passenger and freight operators a track access charge, speed of construction is vital. The €7.8 billion project is on time and on budget, according to COSEA. It has every reason to move quickly. The sooner the trains start running, the sooner Vinci stops spending money and starts making it. The date is set for August 2017.

There has also been a determination to overcome obstacles without delay, “At the end of 2016, we will be commissioning this railway with real trains and with real drivers,” says Gilles Godard, chief executive of delivery consortium Cosea. The line will enter service in 2017 – just five years after civil work began. That’s rapid progress. n