Welcome to today's thread - #CrossBorderRail 2026 Tour Day 05 - 20 Feb - Genève - Coppet - Divonne - Crassier - Nyon - Paris

[stefanlindbohm@mastodon.social]

@cycling_on_rails @jon They’re the only state-owned French railway in the world that does it!

[moof@cupoftea.social]

@jon I think someone told someone else to “stop whining about that rail connection” and that dyslexic someone else decided to double down and commit to the bit

[moof@cupoftea.social]

@bovine3dom @jon You know, some old TGVs doing the Paris-Tolouse run would be awesome.

[bovine3dom@masto.ai]

@moof isn't that what already happens?

it's one of the lines that i am going to cut once appointed imperial ruler sncf voyageurs

Oliver Blanthorn (@bovine3dom@masto.ai)

Attached: 1 image @pglux.bsky.social@bsky.brid.gy @jon@gruene.social https://kepler.gl/demo/map?mapUrl=https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/scl/fi/jn4vntnpies84hiqhudu8/keplergl_z7wbkd9.json?rlkey=bmi0g2gqsmjg53e2dfezdft3g&dl=0 freshly made just for you :) if the sncf would like to use this my consulting fees are very reasonable. what's the opposite of "mates' rates"? "danger money"? 30% discount for new entrants like trenitalia

Mastodon (masto.ai)

[moof@cupoftea.social]

@bovine3dom Last I did the Toulouse-Paris run (May 2025) was on old IC Coradias, though admittedly I was looking to stop at smaller towns there, such as Brive-la-Gaillard.

That being said, I apparently did a Tolouse-Narbonne on a TGV in August 2019, on the Tolouse-Lyon run which only does high speed for about 40 mins from Nîmes

[thias@mastodon.social]

@jon there was an article a few years back comparing the French Sybic locomotives to the Swiss Re 460, one was being refreshed with new electronics to improve efficiency, the other scrapped. Guess which one was scrapped.
I would claim the most impressive refurbishing was the BLS Jumbo B carriages.

[bovine3dom@masto.ai]

@moof corail not coradia, coradia are the new ones

imo the TGVs on these slow routes should be replaced with frequent TERs. then you can run many more passenger-km on the bits where TGVs are actually useful

an unpopular opinion in France because the SNCF has trained french people that connections between trains don't work

[thias@mastodon.social]

@oschonrock @jon its not harmless, it’s quite costly: https://wiesmann.codiferes.net/wordpress/archives/34841

[samy@eupolicy.social]

@jon
I‘ll fix it on the weekend.

[cstross@wandering.shop]

@jon Meanwhile, in Scotland:

[bovine3dom@masto.ai]

@pglux.bsky.social yeah but have you considered that on est les seuls au monde avec ce savoir-faire unique

there are currently about the same number of TGVs sat in french graveyards awaiting scrappage as have ever been exported from France total (~50 for both)

@jon

[jupiter@mastodon.gamedev.place]

@jon
How... Is there the word "croissant" in this headline.

[jon@gruene.social]

@jupiter the pain au chocolat of trains wasn’t available

[markus@mast.uxp.de]

@jupiter @jon ...wave the baguette magique to get rid of the besoin croissant

[whvholst@eupolicy.social]

@jon You misspelled provincialism.

[rmsilva@mamot.fr]

@jon A portion of that track was reactivated a few years back up to Crozet and was used for trains collecting recyclables. But it only lasted a couple of years at most.

A sad thing to see

[otolithe@mastodon.social]

@jon @cstross yes, but we do it while smoking Gitanes and drinking wine, it makes all the difference . Also, we French kiss our trains.

[cstross@wandering.shop]

@otolithe @jon I like TGVs (when they're running on time and the ticketing works) but I couldn't eat a whole one!

[otolithe@mastodon.social]

@cstross @jon it’s true that they look like giant baguettes… and they’re full of meat

[acb@mastodon.social]

@cstross @jon I’ll be catching one of those (well, a cousin) in Australia in a couple of months. Given that Australia’s national motto is “she’ll be right, mate”, I doubt anyone I know will live to see the Melbourne-Sydney line electrified, or even brought up to 1970s British Rail average speed.