SNCF takes long-term approach to cleaner railway sleeper recycling

SNCF Réseau, France’s state-owned railway infrastructure manager, has invested €6.5 million in its Bretenoux-Biars factory in the Lot to create less-polluting wooden railway sleepers.

Every year, the company produces 300,000 sleepers at the site, using wood from the Lot and other parts of south-west France. Until December last year, the wood was treated with toxic creosote, meaning any old or rotten sleepers could not be recycled and had to be burned in an incinerator in a tightly regulated process. But now the wood is being treated with copper oil instead, meaning that in future – in 30 or 40 years’ time, when the sleepers need to be replaced – it can be safely recycled.

The oil offers the same technical performance and durability as creosote, which will be banned in Europe by 2029.

Estelle Masclet, SNCF Réseau’s industrial programmes director, told ICI Occitanie: “This new process allows us to halve the heating temperature, and therefore our carbon emissions. It reduces our water consumption by three and our overall energy consumption at the Bretenoux-Biars site by four.”

While concrete has replaced wood on many high-speed and heavily used train lines, it remains suitable for smaller lines, with around one in three sleepers made of wood. “This proportion should remain unchanged in the future,” says Ms Masclet, stressing that wood has unrivalled qualities for “light railway lines” with particular track gauges or gradients.

Small fries: potato crop problems

While many in France lamented the poor quality and high price of fruit during this summer’s canicules (heatwaves), the lack of water also meant the humble potato struggled to grow to its usual size, leading to fears that this will affect both the size and price of frites (chips or French fries) in the coming months.

France 2 reported in August that potato production was falling dramatically. With some parts of northern France not receiving a drop of rain for two months, the result is fewer potatoes per hectare, with many of them too small to interest industrial buyers.

Benjamin Janssen, a potato grower and president of the Nord branch of the UNPT, France’s national potato producers’ union, explained: “For industrial processing, at least 70% of the potatoes have to be larger than 50mm, or 5cm. Unfortunately, the vast majority fall below that threshold. The worst possible outcome would be for the entire batch to be rejected by processors.”

Despite 2025 seeing a historic potato surplus, they could be in short supply in the coming months, with the sector expecting prices to rise – which is bad news for fans of long frites.

Capercaillie project to end

France’s Ministry for Ecological Transition has announced that the experimental programme to reintroduce the western capercaillie (called le grand tétras in French) to the Vosges region of eastern France will end after the final releases in 2029.

According to the ministry, the results of the programme – costing an estimated €230,000 a year – have been disappointing, with the Vosges mountains no longer deemed a suitable habitat for the beleaguered bird. In April 2024, Connexion reported on a programme to send 40 birds to Norway “to reach good health” before being released back into the Vosges massif once recuperated.

Several experts at the time believed it would not work. Photographer Vincent Munier said: “We no longer have the environment, we no longer have the harsh winters, and we have extremely developed tourism.” Dominique Humbert, president of the SOS Massif des Vosges association, which was opposed to the project from the outset, said: “A few reintroductions of this kind will not change the situation without addressing the habitat and living conditions of this very fragile bird.”