For just over a month, Renfe is testing its trains on the line between Barcelona-Lyon and also towards Marseilles. The traumatic break with the French operator SNCF, with whom they shared commercial operations as far as Paris for more than a decadehas forced the railway company Spanish to a ‘via crucis’ of technical approvals, training of staff and essays of all kinds. The objective is to offer the service before summer because, they say, it is economically viable.
This Monday, the machinists Ricard Codina Codina, Arcadi Estrada López-Franco and Javier García Calvo do turns to get to Lyon from the station saints. Are needed about five hours from Barcelona. They are the three most experienced Renfe professionals, the first to carry out a international trade route in the history of the company periodically. The Spanish firm works in Saudi Arabia with the train to Mecca or in czechoslovakiabut there he does it with natives, different from how he will face the service in France.
Exchange in controls
The high speed line between the Catalan capital and Lyon and Marseille will be covered with a total of 25 machinists and 21 interveners. As of March 6, the next professionals will be incorporated who, little by little, will follow in the footsteps of Ricard, Arcadi and Javier, who have already covered the journey between Madrid, Barcelona, Girona and Perpinyà in recent years. From this last city, were his SNCF colleagues who took control of the train (which they shared thanks to the society ellipses) to get to Paris. And, in the opposite direction, the roles were exchanged.
“The main difficulty is that we have to learn three rules of circulationwhich requires an effort to know safety systems in the cabin and on the ground, it is not the same regulations as it happens in air transport, which is all unified”, says an excited Ricardo Codina. “It is a challenge, of course, because in France we travel partially on the conventional line: there are level crossings, halts halfway and all of this requires more attention,” describes the train driver, who had previously worked at Rodalies.
300 km/h from Nîmes
Thus, the route between Barcelona and Lyon is unequal for the infrastructure. The AVE reaches almost 300 kilometers per hour from Nimes, a high-speed network, where the signaling is in TVM (like the Spanish ERTMS, which is read by the train itself, not by the driver), he comments Carlos NietoRenfe’s head of international high-speed operations.
In the last weeks and in the next ones, while they do the “pasts” the future machiniststhat is, the entire trip between the two cities, is rehearse the stops in the planned stations, the variations in signaling, the adjustments. It is what is known as “blank marches”, practices so that everything goes well from the summer, although the marketing date of the tickets is yet to be announced.
Paris at the end of the year
The trains for now will be old acquaintances S100-Fof Alstom, with eight cars and capacity for 347 seats. Have 32 years and they were released on the Madrid-Seville AVE line, although they have been completely remodeled. However, the Spanish operator will incorporate a Talgo S106 because it is intended to reach 28 weekly circulations for the destinations of Lyon and Marseille progressively.
Then it will be the turn of Paris, this 2023, continues the manager of the company’s international high-speed operations, Juan Ricardo Zambranawhile the AVE under test passes through the station Narbonne. Zambrana admits that the French they have not made things easy to the Spanish railway company, beyond the “sudden notice” from SNCF to suspend the relationship. They have been picky with the paperwork and so far they don’t let them advertise their trains in screen tests.
Permission line by line
Related news
However, Renfe maintains its plans in France. After the railway liberalization, the different operators explore where to expand their business. In Spain, Ouigo and iryo have been providing different services for months high speed. The big difference is that the railway safety authority Spain gives a single permit to work throughout the network, while in France, for example, you have to ask for them line by line, which hinders greatly business expansion.
In fact, the Renfe’s strategic plan It foresees that in 2028 10% of its income will come from international markets, not only in high-speed but also from European or American suburban or regional trains, for example.