€90 million winter plan for SNCF
The train company has come up with measures to avoid the kind of problems caused by snowy weather last year
TO AVOID the kind of problems faced last year – which included a train delayed for 15 hours on a route from Strasbourg to Spain – the SNCF has announced a €90 million winter plan.
“We have learnt our lessons from the Strasbourg to Port-Bou incident,” said equipment director Alain Bullot, at a presentation of measures to deal with bad weather this year.
The measures include:
• To avoid passengers being stuck in a train for hours due to bad weather, if, due to bad weather alerts, the SNCF is unsure if they can guarantee a train will complete its journey, it will be cancelled.
• If a train has already started its journey and there is a bad weather alert, the rule will now be that if it needs to stop for a period this will be in a station so passengers can warm up and buy a snack.
• Trains are being modified to make them more resistant to bad weather and protective coatings are being put on sensitive material like antennae, radars and ventilators.
• Trains will run at reduced speeds in snowy weather, depending on the severity of the weather – if necessary down to 160kph for TGVs instead of 320kph, and 120kph for Corail and TER trains, down from 160-200kph. This is to minimise the damage that is caused when a piece of ice hits a train running at full speed.
• Infrastructure like overhead lines and points will be protected with anti-frost heaters.
• TER local trains parked in stations overnight will remain powered up to avoid risks of condensation – and therefore breakdowns – when they are started up.
