So the new Régiolis trains are going to be running on France-Germany routes in “Summer 2025” according to Transport Minister, Baden-Württemberg Winfried Hermann and President of Région Grand Est, Franck Leroy.
They may as well be picking dates at random.
It is all because of delayed approval of the trains according to Leroy, quoted by AFP here. Meanwhile Hermann speaking to SWR points to the lack of train drivers in France as a problem, and also states that some lines in France need to be renovated, and Grand Est does not have financing. Well, not for Saarbrücken-Forbach and Offenburg-Strasbourg, Winfried – those lines are the priority, and infra there is fine and the trains overloaded. BahnBlogStelle has a little more information here, but that does not get to the heart of the issue either.
Apologies, but these are all secondary issues.
The central problem that neither Leroy nor Hermann even mention is who is going to operate the trains?
As I explain in my original and detailed post about these trains, there is a competitive tender for operations ongoing, but until it is known who is going to win it, no one is going to recruit any drivers or (if someone other than SNCF-SWEG wins) begin to build a depot to maintain them. And – although I cannot prove it – my suspicion is all this delayed approval stuff is a cover for this dysfunction with getting the tender sorted out. Sure the trains have not been approved, but why go to the EU Agency for Railways to even get the approval, when you do not know who will run your trains? This sort of “oh it is all very complicated in railways” line from Leroy is used all too often in rail policy – you use a technical excuse to cover your own dysfunction. Plus trains of a very similar design for Léman Express services France-Switzerland were approved in 2019 without any major hold ups.
Also, as a side note, particular congratulations to AFP for stating “la première rame transfrontalière Régiolis France-Allemagne a été dévoilée mardi” (the first France-Germany Régiolis cross-border trainset was unveiled on Tuesday) – when it was 9 July 2021 when Ministerpräsident of Rheinland-Pfalz Malu Dreyer was pictured with the first train. So you’re more than three years wrong. Good work!
So, honestly, today tells us pretty much nothing new.
[Update 27.8.2024, 18:20]
So it turns out this rubbish from AFP that this was the first train comes from this PDF press release from Grand Est (not that excuses AFP not checking its facts!), that also handily forgets the cross border lines at Lauterbourg and Wissembourg, and talks about data exchange between Grand Est and BaWü – but forgets that Saarland and Rheinland-Pfalz are meant to be in this too. Oh and the PDF is copy protected. Bunch of amateurs really.
