New TGV will allow travel from Paris to Berlin in seven hours
It comes as a trend for longer train journeys is growing. The service will include a night train
The Paris-Berlin journey would take seven hours, which SNCF CEO said more and more people are willing to do
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French train company SNCF and its German counterpart Deutsche Bahn are to launch a direct TGV (high-speed train service) between Paris and Berlin.
CEO of SNCF, Jean-Pierre Farandou, made the announcement to AFP during a visit to Strasbourg. He was there to celebrate 15 years of Franco-German TGV cooperation.
He said: 鈥淚t makes sense because we see that people are willing to make longer and longer journeys [by train]. There are really people who are prepared to stay five, six, or seven hours on a train.
鈥淚n this case, Paris-Berlin is seven hours. A few years ago people thought that was a bit too long of a journey and we worried we would have no take-up, but there are more and more people who don鈥檛 see it as a problem, and so much the better.
鈥淲e, with our German colleagues, are going to try it, and run this train.鈥�
The initial service will run one return journey via Frankfurt per day, operated with Deutsche Bahn trains. It will launch in December 2023. A second service using SNCF carriages may then be added.
Mr Farandou said: "It is quite symbolic in the evolution of our society, and many people鈥檚 growing preference for the train.鈥�
Similar services proving very popular
He explained that current similar services, such as those between Paris-Milan and Paris-Barcelona, have 鈥渟tunningly-high occupancy levels鈥�. Despite the service from Paris-Milan doubling due to the arrival of Italian train company Trenitalia, 鈥渢he trains are still full鈥�, he said.
SNCF is also set to help launch a night train between Paris and Berlin, operated by the Austrian railway 脰BB, also in cooperation with Deutsche Bahn, from the end of 2023.
Mr Farandou said: 鈥淚t will launch at the same time, day and night. People will be able to choose which they prefer.鈥�
Deutsche Bahn CEO, Richard Lutz, co-presented the announcement, saying: 鈥淚 am convinced that we need more railways in Europe, and a strong Europe needs a strong interconnection on the rails. [Railways] are essential to achieve our climate objectives.鈥�
SNCF and Deutsche Bahn have worked together since the opening of the first section of the TGV line between Paris-Strasbourg in 2007.
Since then, the two companies have carried 25 million passengers between Paris-Frankfurt (getting there faster than the same journey by plane), Paris-Stuttgart-Munich and Frankfurt-Marseille.
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