The wait will have been long for the railway world. After 19 months of interruption due to a landslide in the Maurienne valley, in the French Alps, the rail link between Paris and Milan will be restored on Monday, with the return of travelers and goods to the train.
On August 27, 2023, after heavy rains, 15,000 m rock cubes collapsed on a railway gallery, cutting the most taken railway between France and Italy, but also a departmental road and the A43 motorway.
This landslide, which occurred in a notoriously fragile geological zone, demanded long and complex work. It was necessary to secure the cliff, 250 m high, “in order to prevent any risk of falling rock on people located below”, recalled SNCF Réseau, the French railway manager. Securing the site “was a titanic operation”, according to SNCF Réseau. In mid-2014, the discovery of “new cavities/unstable zones” led the work period for several months.
The reopening of the high-speed connection between France and Italy will allow SNCF Travelers to restore its three daily round trips. Trenitalia, who has set up in France over three years ago, will offer two round trips per day.
Implementation of SNCF in Italy
A sign of the impatience of travelers, the daily journey offered by SNCF Travelers with a portion carried out in a coach throughout the duration of the work worked rather well, with a filling rate greater than 80 % according to the French company. For the resumption of TER on the other hand, the Auvergne – Rhône -Alpes region has released several promotional offers to encourage travelers to return to the train, such as a 3 euros ticket between Chambéry and Modane.
Paris-Milan is also an opportunity for SNCF Voyageurs to set foot in Italy, a country where the company wishes to set up, as it did successfully in Spain. The obstacles remain numerous since the SNCF still does not have the new TGVs which it has ordered and actively seeks a maintenance center on the other side of the Alps.
The Italian competition gendarme has opened an investigation for abuse of a dominant position against the Compagnie des Rail Public Ferrovie Dello Stato (FS), suspected of hindrance at the entrance to its French competitor. The objective of offering first links between Milan, Rome and Naples in 2026 seems to be abandoned, and SNCF Travelers refuses to communicate a new calendar.
Recovery of freight
The reopening of Paris-Milan, by which more than 10,000 trains transited per year before the landslide, will also benefit from rail freight. “It is extremely awaited,” confirms the CEO of the French subsidiary of the German company DB Cargo, Alexandre Gallo, who also chairs the French Rail Association (AFRA), a group bringing together all the players in the rail competing SNCF.
“Many of our customers have gone through the road” during the duration of the traffic interruption, says Gallo, who does not expect an immediate return to the situation before the landslide. “We will have to wait until early 2026 to find the trafficking that we knew before,” he anticipates. DB Cargo plans to leave with eight round trips per week against 18 before the accident. A decline also linked to the slowdown in the automotive industry: the company previously transported many Fiat 500 electrics made in the Italian Turin factory for the French market.
At Hexafret (the SNCF freight successor), circulation must resume on April 7 with around twenty rotations per week against thirty a year and a half ago. For the public freight company, “there was no massive modal post” to the road, the drop in flows being mainly due to the economic situation.