How France plans to save its small rural train lines

[John Ashworth]

How France plans to save its small rural train lines

The French government is proposing a multi-billion euro action plan to preserve the country’s run-down provincial rail network.

Junior Minister for Transport Jean-Baptiste Djebbari said on January 7th that he would propose a “concerted action plan” of several billion euros to “preserve the maximum number of France’s small, regional train lines... I want to give the TER services (regional trains) back the role they deserve,” Djebbari said during a Senate debate on the French regional railway system.

Small railway lines cover 9,000 kilometres of France’s rail tracks - 32 percent of the national rail network. However the lines have been struggling with degradation and financial debt for a long time, with about 30 small train lines closing down the past 10 years...