Abolished 20 years ago, the Paris-Aurillac night train line has been back since Sunday evening, with a first train leaving from Austerlitz station under the watchful eye of Transport Minister Clément Beaune and SNCF officials.
The Intercités, partly made up of berths, took off at 7:27 p.m., heading towards Aurillac, which it should reach at 7:15 a.m., after stops among others at Châteauroux, Limoges, Brive… This inauguration takes place the day before that of the Paris-Berlin, also reinstalled in a context of return to favor of this mode of night transport, abandoned in the 2010s. It is “a big acceleration”, commented Clément Beaune, while France is targeting 10 night lines by the end of the decade, according to a plan launched in 2021.
For this Paris-Aurillac, old trains were renovated to accommodate berths. “We will both continue the renovations and order new trains at the end of 2024 and beginning of 2025,” explained the minister, for a budget of 150 million euros. devoted in total to this project to revive night trains. This also includes facilities such as showers at the end of the platform.
State subsidies
For the Paris-Aurillac line, “as with all lines that do not break even, we assume that they are public service lines, and we subsidize their operation: a line like Paris-Aurillac is between 3 and 4 million euros per year in state subsidies.”
Even more than the night train, Clément Beaune underlines the importance of the Intercités, “these train lines which have been neglected, what I sometimes call the somewhat Yellow Vest trains, that is to say of people who have the feeling that we only thought of TGVs and not of regional Intercités trains.”
Jean Castex, the former Prime Minister who had promised the return of this line to Cantal, was there on Sunday evening to see the train leave and note “that it is happening!” “, he told AFP.
The night train “I believe in it,” he added. “This ticks the sustainable transport box and the rurality box, aspects that match my DNA.”
At this stage three weekly Paris-Aurillac night trips are offered by the SNCF, in both directions and at the end of the week. The first sales showed a occupancy rate of 65%, according to Clément Beaune.