@jon The 27 minutes in Lille are really convenient if you need to move from one end of the first train to the other end of the other one because you had to buy two separate tickets because the Carte Avantage only applies on domestic tickets. Or because there were no seats available all the way from the south to Bruxelles. Or both.
@grlodi@jon Well no, isn’t this a flagrant violation of SNCF’s conditions of carriage? The intended solution seems to be “tant pis pour vous, prenez l’avion”.
@pb@grlodi ah but if you change from one TGV unit to the other it’s strictly a different train (different train numbers) so you’re not breaking the terms actually 🙂 (purely theoretically of course too - as I’ve myself never tested this rule! 🤪)
@HRCH Agh, tricky. Changing in Lille is easier (no messing around with the RER across Paris between Nord and Gare de Lyon) but changing in Paris can often be both cheaper and faster. So it depends on your preferences!
@jon Of course, 27 minutes in Lilles is questionable.
However, it is reasonable to spend more than 2 minutes at stations with high passenger numbers. Even at stations like airports or big central stations DB routinely plans for a 2 minute stop and then wonders where the delays come from. I like the SNCF approach of factoring in the fact that people need time to get off and on the trains
@akrumeich I don’t. The stops are extra long for TGVs because they have too few doors, and too little luggage space, and so take too long to board. What good is a 300km/h train if its stops are too long?
@akrumeich logically it’d be 2 mins at every stop except Lyon and CDG (due to high numbers at each) that’d each be 4-5, and 6-10 at Lille because of having to reverse there.
@jon I know that from the Bordeaux - Lille TGV, that spends 14 minutes at Haute Picardie, making it arrive at 17:58 in Lille-Europe but the train to Kortrijk departs at 18:09 at Lille-Flandres 🤦♀️
@jon I’d say that the line itself is fine (bar the few non-ERTMS “islands” which require trains to have legacy signalling systems).
It’s the services where there’s room for improvement. If Eurostar can do London - Marne-la-Vallée I don’t see why an Amsterdam - Bordeaux service wouldn’t be able to circumvent central Paris.
Passenger demand and finding trainsets that can do ERTMS, ATB, TBL, and TVM are probably the biggest obstacles.
@lennardvanotterloo Yes, but you also need to ask: what open access operators are there? Flix abandoned plans to run in France. WESTbahn and Italo look like they have no will to expand that way. So you’re left with only the other state firms like Trenitalia willing to try.
@jon yeah, ie London-Montbard (retour). We spent almost more time between Gare de Lyon and Gare du Nord than in a high-speed trainset. Okay, we could have caught an earlier Eurostar, but they didn't sell us the ticket - which is correct considering the unreliability of RER and Metro.
@orangerkater there are no trains Mulhouse - Besançon - Dijon that head north west on the high speed line and avoid Paris. A Dijon - Lille would make sense, but SNCF 🤷♂️
@jon did they cancel that last train a day. It was once a good connection to CDG for arriving and leaving. But then again, I try not to fly anymore - mainly because I hate airports and I consider CDG as a special place in hell.
@orangerkater Sure. But it’s the Lille Europe connection I’m missing more. For Eurostar and for connections there to Bruges (ok, from Lille Flandres but it’s not far).
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