European Railroad Discussion > France: TGV-LaPoste RIP

Facing declining mail amounts French Postal services La Poste has finally bent to a difficult decision: they have stopped running the 2-3 daily/nightly TGV routes from Paris to cities south of it. Five half units employed (according my statistics there is supposed to be one whole unit too) have been withdrawn and along other TGV-PSEs they are in the immediate danger to be cut to pieces. La Poste tells they had no other alternative as mail amounts transported declined by 50% from 2007 to today, and some of the schedules were only occupied by 15%. This made transporting mail on TGV unprofitable.

In 2012 La Poste tried to make other parcel companies interested in TGV usage and showed TGV-LaPoste for example in London. Results were not encouraging as no other company decided to take part using the units.

For the future La Poste will use intermodal containers (which they call swap bodies) on flat cars on rail transportation, much slower, but profitable way of delivering mail.

I'm hoping La Poste would reserve one power car and one or two of the trailers in their museum, so future generations would see an interesting era when everything put on high speed rail seemed possible.     

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McKey Wrote:
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> Facing declining mail amounts French Postal
> services La Poste has finally bent to a difficult
> decision: they have stopped running the 2-3
> daily/nightly TGV routes from Paris to cities
> south of it. Five half units employed (according
> my statistics there is supposed to be one whole
> unit too) have been withdrawn and along other
> TGV-PSEs they are in the immediate danger to be
> cut to pieces.

The half-sets make up two trains, while the spare half-set is available or under going maintenance.


> La Poste tells they had no other
> alternative as mail amounts transported declined
> by 50% from 2007 to today, and some of the
> schedules were only occupied by 15%. This made
> transporting mail on TGV unprofitable.
>
> In 2012 La Poste tried to make other parcel
> companies interested in TGV usage and showed
> TGV-LaPoste for example in London. Results were
> not encouraging as no other company decided to
> take part using the units.
>
> For the future La Poste will use intermodal
> containers (which they call swap bodies) on flat
> cars on rail transportation, much slower, but
> profitable way of delivering mail.

Swap-bodies are non-stackable containers that require bottom lift like trailers.

> I'm hoping La Poste would reserve one power car
> and one or two of the trailers in their museum, so
> future generations would see an interesting era
> when everything put on high speed rail seemed
> possible.     

 

Great-looking trainsets.  Here's a couple of my shots from 1988 and 1993 respectively.  The first was taken from the footbridge at the Charenton TGV maintenance facility.  The second was from the Boulevard Poniatowski (a little closer in to the center of Paris).

Ray  

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Thank you for sharing this excellent set of pics! Things seemed to look very colorful years ago. 

Ray_Murphy Wrote:
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> Great-looking trainsets.  Here's a couple of my
> shots from 1988 and 1993 respectively.  The first
> was taken from the footbridge at the Charenton TGV
> maintenance facility.  The second was from the
> Boulevard Poniatowski (a little closer in to the
> center of Paris).
>
> Ray  

One thing to yet think about: it looks obvious that half sets _as_is_ or as they are used can not be coupled together, because TGV trailers share a bogie between them. So you can't connect two bogies with each other (as far as I know). However, in addition to pics I've seen of these strange looking La Poste half sets running with the bogie hanging 50% out of the set at the end of the train, looking at most other pictures it appears the other bogie was often / almost always removed, and the half lifted to other half sets end bogie, forming a full set as you suggest. 

For half set formation, please see here: http://sncf-ratp91860.skyrock.com/photo.html?id_article=2961978253&id_article_media=5583165

So unfortunate I did not have a chance to study the traffic patterns and formations of these for a day or two before the ceased running.

SOO6617 Wrote:
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> McKey Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Facing declining mail amounts French Postal
> > services La Poste has finally bent to a
> difficult
> > decision: they have stopped running the 2-3
> > daily/nightly TGV routes from Paris to cities
> > south of it. Five half units employed
> (according
> > my statistics there is supposed to be one whole
> > unit too) have been withdrawn and along other
> > TGV-PSEs they are in the immediate danger to be
> > cut to pieces.
>
> The half-sets make up two trains, while the spare
> half-set is available or under going maintenance.
 

I loved the concept of La Poste.  Too bad it didn't survive.
 

Hope someone will rewive this concept, but costs on super fast rail travel need then be lower than on air traffic. Somehow it seems like this is unlikely to happen with airliners developing more and more efficient and railways remaining much the way they have "always been". Maybe ti woudl be time for some radical innovation to change the development?

ProRail Wrote:
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> I loved the concept of La Poste.  Too bad it
> didn't survive.
>