.jpeg)
Train versus plane: with many domestic flights
banned in France, we test its rail network
Visionary policy or pipe dream? An 18-day, 3,000km
loop from Paris to the Atlantic and Mediterranean and back should tell us
Joe Zadeh
Mon 4 Sep
2023 07.00 BST
France
could well be the perfect place to track the progress of the main battle over
the future of travel: trains versus planes. In May 2021, France positioned
itself as the frontrunner in a carbon-cutting train renaissance when its
government enacted a ban on domestic flights where the journey could be done by
train in less than two and a half hours. “We are the first to do it,” Emmanuel
Macron said on Twitter, and it was hailed by minister Clément Beaune as a
“powerful message” and a “strong symbol”. The European Commission designated
2021 as the “Year of European Rail” and billions of euros have since poured
into railway infrastructure across central and eastern Europe.
So as the
summer holidays began, a heatwave rose and nationwide strikes loomed, I bought
a “one country” Interrail pass for £201 and set off on a circular loop round
France by train, to see whether Macron’s policy was visionary policy or a pipe
dream that discounted the strain it would put on crumbling public
infrastructure. The 18-day route I’d plotted used trains from high-speed TGVs
to rickety regional TERs, blending major cities with small towns. Arriving on
the Eurostar in Paris, I’d head west towards Nantes, down the Atlantic coast to
Bordeaux and seaside resort Soulac-sur-Mer, across the south to Narbonne and
Marseille, before heading across country to the ancient volcanic region of
Chaîne des Puys, before returning to Paris.
The European Commission designated 2021 the Year of
European Rail and billions of euros have poured into railway infrastructure
across central and eastern Europe
Paris to
Nantes was a peaceful and direct high-speed TGV for four hours and 16 minutes.
The buffet car was remarkably classy, offering the usual fare alongside small
jars of honey and four types of tea. Both were a bit pricey for me, but I was
glad they were there. The train pulled into Nantes at sunset, and the city had
an excitable hum. Each summer, the streets are filled with free public art, and
a green line painted on the ground guides visitors from piece to piece. Traffic
noise is absent thanks to an electrified tram system and large pedestrianised
zones, allowing alfresco bars and restaurants to spill on to the roads. At
night, all you can hear is the warm sound of voices.
A few days
later, my four-hour journey to Soulac-sur-Mer on the silver coast of Aquitaine
started on Intercités, the medium- to long-distance trains that run where there
are no TGVs. If there was wifi onboard, it wasn’t working, and as there was
very little phone reception, I spent the time staring out of the window at
fields of corn and sunflowers, rigidly rowed vineyards and thick green streams.
At Bordeaux Saint-Jean, the atmosphere was frantic as thousands of people
funnelled into low-ceiling tunnels in search of connections. Mine was a
battered TER train, its inside shrouded in darkness as every window was sprayed
thickly in graffiti. But the aircon was working and it felt like an angel’s
breath.
If France
has a climate crisis frontline, it is in places like Soulac-sur-Mer. In 1967, a
four-storey block of holiday flats, named Le Signal, was built 200 metres from
the water, offering panoramic views of the Atlantic. But rising sea levels
accelerated by climate change saw the ocean creep closer and closer, eating up
the metres each year. By 2014, the 75 flats of Le Signal had to be evacuated.
In February this year, the abandoned block was finally demolished. I walked to
where it had stood – now a sand dune being slowly repopulated by tufts of
marram grass.
To get to
my next stop, Narbonne, I headed back to Bordeaux and changed on to an
Intercités train for a three and a half-hour ride. This train was old and
charming, and the carriage was lit by art deco-style lamps. French train
carriages, on the whole, seem quieter than in the UK. It felt as if the social
etiquette was to maintain a library-style ambience: people spoke in hushed
voices and took their phone calls to the corridor. Outside the window, the
Pyrenees became visible to the north-west, muscular blue-green and shrouded in
haze.
The train was old and charming, and the carriage was
illuminated by art deco-style lamps
At under
four hours, this would be the shortest of my long rides on this trip, and a
reminder that France is huge, and that a ban on domestic flights where there is
an alternative short train journey is not much of a ban at all. In fact, only
5,000 of France’s annual 200,000 domestic flights have been affected by the new
law. It will save 55,000 tonnes of CO2, but that will represent only 0.23% of
France’s total aviation emissions. It was more of a symbolic gesture than a
defiant act, and the plan must surely be to gauge the public response and then
go further.
Narbonne
was windy, hot and lively, and the architecture was orange and red. This
summer, the government rolled out 200,000 discounted train tickets to encourage
travellers to visit places just like this, but on the counter of a boulangerie
near the station, a newspaper headline read: “Where have all the tourists
gone?” In ancient times, Narbonne was one of the most important cities in Roman
Gaul, but in the 14th century its spirited river, the Aude, changed course and
left it behind. Its colossal high gothic cathedral, started in 1272, was halted
midway through construction and remains unfinished. But it’s still a hub for
Catholics: priests gathered on street corners and religious shops abounded. One
sold bottles of holy water for €2 and a glow-in-the-dark Jesus for €23.
It was on the journey to Clermont-Ferrand that things
derailed a little
It was on
the journey to Clermont-Ferrand that things derailed a little. Masses of hot
and clammy travellers had piled into the four carriages of the Intercité train
between Lyon and Saint-Germain-des-Fossés. Arguments erupted over seat
reservations while those left standing – of which I was one – negotiated for
space. As the shelves above the seats hit capacity, luggage was piled up by the
door in a mound resembling a village bonfire.
I found a
spot by the mound, and hung on to a horizontal bar. As the train hit a hard
bend, a huge red case tumbled from the pile and flew past me. To a collective
yelp, it crashed into a young man reading cross-legged at my feet. Aside from a
bruised shoulder, he seemed unhurt, and nonchalantly reopened his book. But
there was a new mood in the carriage, and every time the train shook its way
around a corner, we all glanced upwards in unison.
Despite
that and a few other hairy moments, I had a new respect for the scale and
breadth of the French rail network. When I told this to a waiter in a Clermont
cafe, he shook his head and told me French trains were “too complicated”, “too
old” and “too slow”. When I said they were still far superior to British trains
he burst into laughter. With the trip nearing its end, I checked my Interrail
app. It told me I’d travelled 2,752km (1,710 miles) on 10 trains for a total of
26 hours and 48 minutes, with CO2 emissions 90% less than if I’d flown.
Sem comentários:
Enviar um comentário