European Railroad Discussion > Question about TGV liveries

I was in France this spring and photographed many TGV trains at several stations. Most TGVs wore the "traditional" blue and silver. However I noticed a small number in a different color scheme -- such as the TGV on the right in the accompanying shot taken in the Nice station. Is this a newer paint scheme or something else -- perhaps a special or dedicated livery?

Thanks for any clarification

WP17
 

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On the right is, I think, the new Carmillion livery, whilst on the left is the older style. John McKey is the expert on TGVs, I'm sure he'll confirm what they are. In the meantime try his 4rail website, it has heaps of stuff on TGVs.

On the left is the as-delivered scheme.

On the right, is SNCF's new livery.  To be honest, I'm not sure about it....a little too "gloomy, uncertain future"-evoking for me.....

Great find! On the left at Nice Ville is a 700 series TGV-Dasye, which is about 2-3 years old and on the right already refurbished (at least externally) 200 series TGV-Duplex, which is about 15 years (+-4 years) old.

New units all come out now painted Carmillion (greeen-white-silver-red), please see this thread on trainorders for info on TGV-2N2, the newest breed: http://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?17,3770016

For 4rail.net TGVs and maybe 2000 pictures of them, please see: http://www.4rail.net/fast_tgv1.php

Or you might wish to read this info in book format (easier to arrange logically with all the subjects and stories around than on web pages): http://www.amazon.com/High-Speed-Trains-2015-America-ebook/dp/B00PPFQRH0
(This book is literally as cheap as Amazon lets me to sell it ;) (Since it is a digital book, I typically update it every two weeks with the latest info)

Excuse my lack of knowledge regarding the TGVs, I've just reviewed these posts as well as the McKey site. Too much knowledge to digest in one sitting. The question
I have is this:  Do some of the trains (or all of them) have some or all powered "coaches" in addition to one or two of the end locos being powered?
I'm assuming that each class stays only with its siblings and is not intermingled with earlier or later versions even in an emergency as when a disabled train needs to
be pushed or pulled to an area that will get it out of the way??

Frank30 (Boston, where Accela is our "TGV")

No problem at all! Great that you ask this issue.
The concentrated vs. distributed power issue has been debated for years and there are facts that favor each one of them. Concentrated power supporters favor issues like easy maintenance, easy interchangeability and modularity, something traditional for railroads as I see them. Distributed power system supporters are yet to prove their might on extremely high speed solutions, as there are 600 TGVs alone + over 100 ICE1 and ICE2 of DB around. But the numbers of distributed units are growing, slowly but steadily. I just wonder if there is a solid economy behind this newer phenomenon, once the true competition starts. But definitely, if the distributed power will ever be economical, it can carry more people the same space as traditional concentrated power.

Frank30 Wrote:
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> Excuse my lack of knowledge regarding the TGVs,
> I've just reviewed these posts as well as the
> McKey site. Too much knowledge to digest in one
> sitting. The question

All newer TGVs have just one locomotive at both ends fo unit. Plus 8 nonpowered trailers sandwiched. TGV-PSE was generation one trial and had the first bogie powered. Since TGV Atlantique everything has been pure locomotives with nonpowered trailers of one of the three types (not counting the nonstandars designs like TMST-Eurostar, which also shares the TGV-PSE powered first bogie). 
1) single story trailers, 8 units, Thalyses, TGV-Réseau, Thalys-PBA, Thalys-PBKA, TGV-POS, ...  (TGV-Atlantique is actually 10 trailer TGV-Réseau)
2) double decked G1 trailers, 8 units, TGV-Duplex, TGV-Dasye, TGV-Hybrid
3) double decked New generations trailers, 8 units, used so far only with TGV-2N2
Alstom tried to sell in late 1990s powered coaches to make TGVs double length and carry even more people in space of 400 meters that two units always form, but so far SNCF or any other operator has declined to buy this kind of design. Obviously the compatibility / interopearibility is more important than some extra seats.  

> I have is this:  Do some of the trains (or all of
> them) have some or all powered "coaches" in
> addition to one or two of the end locos being
> powered?

All TGVs can be coupled with any other TGV. For standard 200 meter trains this creates possibilities with easy and interesting capacity variations. Just push any two TGVs together (with nose doors open) and they will couple and run together. The reason why TGV-PSEs mostly run within the type is because they only run 300 km/h / 186 mph, too little to stay on schedule with any other TGV type. But TGV-PSE is still perfectly good outside rush hours and on "quieter" lines.

Disabled trains with TGVs hardly exist. When you typically run two units of various types together, even if one loco fails (which might happen), you still have three to stay almost on schedule (remember that some of the track climbs are actually 4%, so power is really needed). Should one unit fail completely, the other will be able to tow it to destination or intermediate station. You have probably noticed the absense of thunderbirds near high speed lines? I think the TGV diagnostics is so good as well as is maintenance, that nothing ever seems to stop on line. It has to be so as any incident on crowded line will be recflected to all units running behind a malfunctioning one, something to seriously minimize. TGVs have currently 99% availability at the start station, meaning that another unit can be used if one should be diagnozed as not in shape for the next dash. Billions of kilometers travelled has really created one of the kind train class, the TGVs. I just wish the French would be better salesmen to be able to sell those outside their immediate influence.   

> I'm assuming that each class stays only with its
> siblings and is not intermingled with earlier or
> later versions even in an emergency as when a
> disabled train needs to
> be pushed or pulled to an area that will get it
> out of the way??

Oh, is Acela realiability still far below real TGVs? It is not purely Alstom train, and whenever the big guys in the old days cooperated in building, end results could not be told to be working.  

> Frank30 (Boston, where Accela is our "TGV")

1) Permanent neodymium magnet motor on bogie, Innortrans 2014, Berlin. This is a Bombardier bogie. Permanent magn et motor, as it is powerful and small is typically used on super high speed EMUs.

2) TGV-PSE, the type with a powered first trailer bogie. (notice the step above the cab, being the easiest recognition aid for type)

3) TMST-Eurostar Capitals, same technology here.

Hope I solved more questions than created new ones.

 

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Thanks John for taking the time to clear up my questions.  I definitely will read it a few more times. I should not have used the words Accela and TGV in one thought,
Accela is Our version of High Speed Railroading, but in no way approaches TGV operations. What with the government's allocations toward Amtrak always in doubt of
equalling the previous year, let alone being greater so improvements can be made, is it any wonder  that we are far behind everyone else on earth when it comes to High
Speed Trains!

Frank30 (Boston)

You are welcome Frank! Hope you will get a true high speed track to you megacity area too, so you can run true super high speed trains. I think Acela must have had TGV as a starting point, especially since Alstom ran TGV-PSE unit 101 as a P-01 tilting trainset demonstrator slightly before the delivery of Acela. But still, standard components were not used. And just like with the TMST-Eurostars, this lead to very different end results from the industry standard efficient and extremely well working trains.

Maybe you could see the TGV-Web for more details on tilting demonstrator: http://www.trainweb.org/tgvpages/p01.html

This site was about 15 years ago one of the websites that sparked my TGV interest. Hope it still provides interesting info for you, and maybe sparks a TGV interest as well :)  With 600 sets there is always something more to be found, especially since especially SNCF keeps improving some train sets every year.  

John

Frank30 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Thanks John for taking the time to clear up my
> questions.  I definitely will read it a few more
> times. I should not have used the words Accela and
> TGV in one thought,
> Accela is Our version of High Speed Railroading,
> but in no way approaches TGV operations. What with
> the government's allocations toward Amtrak always
> in doubt of
> equalling the previous year, let alone being
> greater so improvements can be made, is it any
> wonder  that we are far behind everyone else on
> earth when it comes to High
> Speed Trains!
>
> Frank30 (Boston)

Frank30 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> Accela is Our version of High Speed Railroading,
> but in no way approaches TGV operations. What with
> the government's allocations toward Amtrak always
> in doubt of
> equalling the previous year, let alone being
> greater so improvements can be made, is it any
> wonder  that we are far behind everyone else on
> earth when it comes to High
> Speed Trains!
>
> Frank30 (Boston)

Please correct me if I'm wrong. but my understanding of the Acela srvice is not simply that it has been rather weakly supported financially. I believe the real difficulty may have been a reluctance to simply buy from Europe (or Japan) an "off the peg" train, of which there are several choices. I suspect that attempts to create an Americanised version (using a mixture of French and Canadian technolgies} has resulted in an expensive and unreliable result for the US.

If cash is short (possibly for understandable reasons) then clearly it makes sense to buy something proven and reliable at a good price. Hence the success of Boeing and Airbus!

On the other hand if the US really wished to become the world leader in high speed rail technology, then it needs to spend big bucks. Why not give the project to Apple? There are always choices to be made!

In the UK we have had endless world firsts (electronic computer, jet airliner etc), which never received the development cash required. Hence the early hegemony of IBM and Boeing et al. In the early 1980s British Rail had three pre-production tilting high speed electric trains ready to go into service after 15years of development. However they required a further £50 milion of investment to iron out the bugs, cash to which the Thatcher government refused access. As a result we now have a fleet of tilting trains built in Europe using the Fiat technology which actually got developed, and our rail rolling stock industry consists largely of the assembly of high value components made abroad. Just like China without (dubious) benefit of the IP rip-offs!

A final point on TGV reliability - they are indeed most unlikely to fail in service, but SNCF also has a huge fleet of spare units. These are great for provding extra capacity at the peaks, but one wonders whether they are justified financially.


 



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 08/03/15 01:12 by spflow.

McKey, there is more diversity in the TGV, Thalys, and Eurostar fleets than you seem to be aware of. The TGV-PSE trainsets have DC traction motors, and the power limitations of these motors is the reason for the powered bogie under the adjacent end of the first trailer car, also these are only capable of 270 kph. The suceeding TGV-Atlantique, TGV-Reseau, andThalys-PBA fleets used 3-phase AC motors, but they use Synchronous motors.  The TGV-Duplex introduced the Double-deck configuration  for their trailer cars, and 3-phase Asynchronous AC traction motors. The Thalys-PBKA used TGV-Duplex powercars with the 3-phase Aysnchronous traction motors pulling single level passenger cars like the TGV-Reseau. The TGV-POS are similar to the Thalys-PBKA sets. Finally the newest TGV-2N2 and the Euroduplex variant use the 3-phase permag Synchronous AC traction motors. The Eurostars, both the E*-3C and E*-NOL versions are slighly narrower than TGVs and used GEC 3-phase AC Asynchronous traction motors. 

Yes you are right, but I really did not wish to mix up the conversation by putting there too much information.

Please double check the Thalys-PBKA vs. TGV-POS loco types, to my knowledge the TGV-POS locomotive is of the newer type while Thalys-PBKA locomotive seems to be of the older. Or, as I mentioned earlier, this might be a place to learn more if facts are from your reliable source ;D 

And, all TVM430 equipped TGV-PSE sets have been able to run 300 km/h since around year 2000. All except Postal -TGVs, which were not upgraded.

SOO6617 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> McKey, there is more diversity in the TGV, Thalys,
> and Eurostar fleets than you seem to be aware of.
> The TGV-PSE trainsets have DC traction motors, and
> the power limitations of these motors is the
> reason for the powered bogie under the adjacent
> end of the first trailer car, also these are only
> capable of 270 kph. The suceeding TGV-Atlantique,
> TGV-Reseau, andThalys-PBA fleets used 3-phase AC
> motors, but they use Synchronous motors.  The
> TGV-Duplex introduced the Double-deck
> configuration  for their trailer cars, and
> 3-phase Asynchronous AC traction motors. The
> Thalys-PBKA used TGV-Duplex powercars with the
> 3-phase Aysnchronous traction motors pulling
> single level passenger cars like the TGV-Reseau.
> The TGV-POS are similar to the Thalys-PBKA sets.
> Finally the newest TGV-2N2 and the Euroduplex
> variant use the 3-phase permag Synchronous AC
> traction motors. The Eurostars, both the E*-3C and
> E*-NOL versions are slighly narrower than TGVs and
> used GEC 3-phase AC Asynchronous traction
> motors. 



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/03/15 12:01 by McKey.