Missing Service
The mainline through the Alps between France and Italy, from Chambèry to Torino, has seen marked improvements in its long distance trains in recent years, but there is no cross border regional service on the same line between Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne or Modane (France) and Bardonecchia or Oulx-Cesana-Claviere-Sestriere (Italy) at all. All French TER trains terminate at Modane, and all Italian Regionale trains terminate at Bardonecchia, leaving just 18.8km through the Frèjus Tunnel without a regional service. The line is dual tracked and electrified.
What needs to be done: extend Trenitalia Regionale trains from Bardonecchia to Modane. It has to be done this way around due to the change of voltage between the French and Italian systems
European Commission Analysis
In 2018 the European Commission published its “Comprehensive analysis of the existing cross-border rail transport connections and missing links on the internal EU borders”. The main report (74 pages, PDF) summarises the issues, and Annex 3 of the report (384 pages, PDF) analysed every single border.
For the sake of simplicity, I have made a PDF just of the relevant pages of Annex 3 that cover Bardonecchia-Modane – you can find that PDF here.
Photos from this location
