Going by train from Rouen (Seine-Maritime) to Le Mans (Sarthe), without going through Paris, it could soon be possible. In any case, this is what the General Directorate for Infrastructure, Transport and the Sea is proposing, in a report on mobility published on Friday 21 May. The services of the DGITM recommend the creation of three new lines subsidized by the State, including Nantes-Lille in 6.30 hours, passing in particular through Arras, Amiens, Rouen and Le Mans. The State thus wants to relaunch the regional balance trains, those formerly called the Corail Intercité, to connect large cities where the TGV and TER supply is deemed insufficient. These regional balance trains will be operated by SNCF, but managed and financed by the State.
If there is already a direct TGV line between Le Mans and Lille, with a journey time of less than three hours, the whole point of this TET would be to serve intermediate cities such as Alençon, Lisieux, Rouen, Amiens or Arras. For now, these cities are accessible from Le Mans by train with one or more connections. This is particularly the case between Rouen and Le Mans. By car, the journey takes about two hours, but by train it takes between three and four hours, with a change of station in Paris. To go from Le Mans to Amiens, rail users encounter the same difficulties: the journey takes up to 4:40 and you have to go from Gare Montparnasse to Gare du Nord in Paris, with some even another connection in Arras.
Compete with the car
These travel times and these changes push many travelers to favor the road, or “the highway is competitive with the train“, estimates Jean-François Hogu, member of the office of the National Federation of associations of transport users (Fnaut).”All the changes that pile up make travelers choose a faster mode of transportation“, in this case between Le Mans and Rouen, the car.
With this new territorial balance train line between Nantes and Lille, the Le Mans-Rouen trip would only be 2 hours and 20 minutes. On the other hand, it would take 6.30 hours to connect the two ends of the line, with two turnbacks in Rouen and Le Mans, which “would cost about ten minutes“. The state therefore recommends two round trips per day.
Open up the territories
This line proposed by the State would allow an opening up of the territories and a better inter-regional service, according to Fnaut. “It is a combination of connections that today can only be done from one end to the other with the TGV. There are thus TGV Nantes-Le Mans-Lille, but there is no connection to go to Rouen or Amiens“, explains Jean-François Hogu, delegate of Fnaut in the Sarthe. This would make it possible to”redevelop inter-cities, without going through Paris“, he greets.
According to the Directorate-General for Infrastructure, Transport and the Sea, 40% of inter-regional flows are not linked to Île-de-France. And a third of these trips are made between regions that are not neighboring. This Lille-Nantes TET line would thus cross three regions: Hauts-de-France, Normandy and Pays de la Loire. It would serve to serve four large metropolises whose urban areas have more than 500,000 inhabitants (Lille, Douai-Lens, Rouen, Nantes) and three average urban areas of 200 to 500,000 inhabitants (Amiens, Le Mans, Angers).
For the moment, no date has been put forward. Additional studies must first be carried out to define the technico-economic feasibility and the tariffs to be applied. If this line is retained, it would not see the light of day before 2025 according to Fnaut. The amount of this new service is estimated at 70 million euros.
Two other potential lines have been identified by the State services: Metz-Lyon-Grenoble and Toulouse-Lyon.
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