European Railroad Discussion > France: Latest and Greates on High Speed Trains

Here is the latest and greatest of the European high speed trains: TGV-2N2 of SNCF! (also dubbed as RGV-2N2 and sometimes slightly misleading as "Euroduplex")

We've been watching these amazing production machines delivered in their older blue-silver colors for years now, while SNCF has been simultaneously painting older TGVs to current Carmillion scheme. This was my first spotting of the factory painted + vinyled Carmillion unit.

So what is special about this train? About 600 Alstom TGVs run in France, U.K., Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg, Germany, Switzerland, Italy and Spain today. Usage figures have improved so that unlike earlier most of these are actually running and maybe clocking in average over 1000 kilometers almost every day. While other manufacturers and operators do much of the talking and boast on their superior technology, SNCF (they own Thalys, Eurostar, ... too) has decided they will do the business of moving passengers around. In both first class and budget classes. This is not achieved by having the latest technology that might not be working running on rails, but using something that has clocked by now billion miles and transported about 500 million passengers. TGVs simply work. And the 320 km/h / 199 mph top service speed (that can be raised to 340 km/h / 212 mph when lines speeds allow) in quite sufficient on today's crowded high speed lines.    

1-3) TGV-2N2 #813 pulling in to Nice Ville, France with a sister double decked unit in blues.

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So what is this train? It is the latest refinement of the long line of TGV production models, with just about everything checked for need of improvements. Some features were changed, others remain seemingly similar as earlier.
For productivity's sake the double decked coaching is used today. It weights the same (actually slightly less) than a single level coaching, but it can carry ~44% more passengers, translating to better productivity. The AC locomotive at both ends may not be the meanest on market, but they handle their work extremely well. 

Looking at the trailer / coach section it can be uncloupled from locomotives with relatively ease now. But trailers are a section of 8 articulated modules. Only end bogies are actually under coaches, others are shared with adjacent coaches. There are a coupole of very good reasons for this: 
1) In France the access charges (every train pays for access to national network maintained by state of France) are paid by axles. So for 8 trailers (standard for TGVs) you might have 8 x 4 = 32 axles, but for TGVs you only have 18, translating to paying only 56% of the access charges of a "normally built train".
2) Articulation is an important safety feature. As you can imagine, large number of human casualties has been saved in accidents as the trailers will not zig-zag, like a more traditional train would do.   

Looking at the locomotives at the ends (TGVs are always sandwiched by these) you can again see a long line of product development and huge numbers of locos produced. I see some features dating back to "shark nose loco" period of France, like the side grilles, basic construction, etc. Yet, some improvements have been done during all these 45 years TGVs have been built. The latest locomotive is an AC version, translating to more power and much less maintence need. Locos always run in double, as they are light, and should one fail, the other will still work. And of course on bigger lines chances are there is also another TGV unit coupled to failing unit (failures rarely happen, but the system is doubled here anyways). As you can imagine, the huge mass of loco and its safety structures act as a plow when need be. Again, during these years countles lives have been saved this way. The latest locomotive style, despite ints humble looks, is supposed to have ever better safety features. Been to the cab I see this very important to the life of the poor engineer sitting in front of a huge electrical cabinet protruding long into the cab form the machine room, not much spare room here, nor a chance to easily bail out. 

4-6) Leading end of the train, with 5 second class coaches.

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7-8) Bar trailer (earlier buffet) acts as a natural barrier between 2nd and 1st classes.

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9-10) Pictures of articulation between trailers. (the safety feature)
11) Latest exterior info display. 

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Easy recognition for TGV-2N2 / RGV-2N2:
I ->  Number series: 8xx or 47xx (colors are either Carmillion here or blue-silver-gray (for most 47xx units))

II ->  12) Upper grilles of the locomotive. Look at the ends for newer model, end grilles are slightly longer there. From above newer units have many more recognition features on the roof.

III -> 13) Trailer end cabling is arranged this way. Warning: some of the older trailers have this feature built in now too, which means you should only believe numbers...making recognition of the trailer type ever so difficult.

So, unfortunately it looks like we are heading the same way as recognizing the basic forms of ES44s...

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"Locos are always run in pairs so if one should fail, the other keeps working."  Hello Amtrak? Anyone listening?

With train running inside Western Europe, there is always politics involved, especially when weaker coutries like Italy are concerned. Even if you have a train set running the same way as low cost airlines operate, with extreme efficiency (always improving this), weaker countries seem to be able to block their borders from other traffic, or making much legal and illegal hassle as David Haydock has pointed out (editor of Today's Railways Europe). One example of this is TGVs having to run on normal rail routes in Italy, where italian own high speed stock runs on high speed lines. Unfair? Well, the French countered this very efficiently by blocking Trenitalia from running at all to their country, except on a very slow traditional passenger connections. Effectively, the French told that every ETR500 unit (built by Ansaldo Breda) is built different by hand (which is probably true), so to homologate these and certificate for international running every trains should have been created to its own class! Very effective counter!

13) Anyways, here the TGV-2N2 with a TGV-Hybrid #619 (which should not _yet_ exist according to my data) is dashing towards Marseille and Paris. Bon Voyage!

Can you see the similarity with say B737-800 and TGV-2N2 operations? Neither is the latest in technology, but both are extremely well working and extremely effective production machines. To my amusements (I flew the latest Norwegian B737-8xx from Nice) these vehicles also seem to share some of the design features. Of course train technology and airlines technology are closely related, as Bombardier might prove. Wonder when we will see Airbus high speed trains...  8-D

 

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I think this is where the industry is heading: multiplying systems in case of failure is the trend for today. Picking one away from TGV genre, Stadler Rail seems to be advertising this failure tolerance widely. If one element should fail, you just isolate it and use the rest of them. Simple and ingenious!

andersonb109 Wrote:
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> "Locos are always run in pairs so if one should
> fail, the other keeps working."  Hello Amtrak?
> Anyone listening?

Here is something for Amtrak from the land of Swedish meatballs: many trains headed by SJ Rc6 were earlier topped and tailed by these locos to allow easy turnaround enroute. Seriously, it might be quite interesting to talk on the walkie talkie orders from the front how the operating loco at the back should be handled ;)   but the redundancy is even here, albeit in antiquated fashion.  Picture by Hannu. 

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That last picture with the two eras of TGVs joined together under the catenary with those neat French signals captures how intense French railroading really is. I also liked hearing about how the Breda cars are limited in France. If they are as big a failure as their LRV cars have been on the the MBTA in Boston then SNCF made a good decision and probably saved themselves a lot of grief.

Jim

Thanks Jim if you see I got the essense of French railroading here :)

Ansaldo Breda is definitely a sad story how two cultures, Italian and just about any "more northern culture of Europe" can collide hard. I will post later some more info on the latest of the Danish IC2 and IC4 units. There should be a big set of new pictures coming in a few weeks on the subject...

tq-07fan Wrote:
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> That last picture with the two eras of TGVs joined
> together under the catenary with those neat French
> signals captures how intense French railroading
> really is. I also liked hearing about how the
> Breda cars are limited in France. If they are as
> big a failure as their LRV cars have been on the
> the MBTA in Boston then SNCF made a good decision
> and probably saved themselves a lot of grief.
>
> Jim

I miss the orange, black and white TGV's! 

They had character!  Not as pretty in blue, but still nicer then
these modern day inverted bath tubs.

/Mitch

:-D ...yeah, that is what they definitely look like!

Mgoldman Wrote:
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> I miss the orange, black and white TGV's! 
>
> They had character!  Not as pretty in blue, but
> still nicer then
> these modern day inverted bath tubs.
>
> /Mitch

Here is three for you from our friends on forum. By now many TGV-PSEs have been twice repainted. This was the only TGV type originally wearing this cool orange-red-dark blue-gray scheme. Wish they would paint one to retro colors again, as a heritage unit!
 

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