2022-08 - Blog Posts
The Mulhouse-Thann tram-train
Combining a suburban train service with the ability to navigate city streets sounds amazing. People can live nearer to the countryside, get frequent service into town, and, if everything lines up, commute straight into work without changes and avoiding the main station. The complementarity and opportunity to revitalise a branch line all sounds appealing... but a real challenge to implement. In France, only Mulhouse has truly achieved it.
Tram-trains aren't exactly rare in France: there are several lines around Paris, Nantes and Lyon have them (and many more had tram-train projects at some point). But, while the vehicles are capable of running in both modes, they are mostly used as a cheaper way to operate a line. The Nantes-Clisson and Nantes-Châteaubriant tram-trains, for example, which I have ridden, are just regional trains, running on heavy rail nearly all the way, and only stopping where the trains always used to.
Mulhouse is the only place in France to have true tram-train operations as described in the introduction: the tram-trains add traffic to line 3 between Mulhouse central station and Lutterbach, before switching to train mode and continuing on the branch line to Kruth as far as Thann.
The vehicles themselves are remarkable, as they need to be equipped for both streetcar and heavy rail operations, and each has its own requirements: lighting, horns, power supply, safety features... Mulhouse's vehicles are Siemens Avanto S70s, built in 2009-2010, and operated by SNCF as class U 25500. Similar units were introduced near Paris as early as 2005.
"Stick an aircraft engine in it" part 2a - SNCF Turbotrains
Developed in the late 1960s and introduced in the early 1970s, Turbotrains were France's attempt at higher speed rail. Equipped with lightweight and powerful helicopter-based gas turbines, they were capable of 160 km/h service.
However, that introduction date spelled rapid doom for the ETG (Élément à Turbine à Gaz) and RTG (Rame à Turbine à Gaz) types. They were built so they had to be used, the noise and the 430 L/h consumption rate be damned (3 times the consumption of an equivalent Diesel train, and that's just for the prime mover, add another 150 L/h for the generators), but they were constantly moved away from more prestigious routes as soon as those were electrified.
This 1981 photo by Yves Broncard is one of my favourite "so 1970s" pictures: a gas turbine train at Boulogne Aéroglisseurs station, with a massive SR.N4 car-carrying hovercraft arriving in the background - "stick an aircraft engine in it" mentality taken to the max, on land and sea, a combination that seems irrational today.
The last RTGs were withdrawn in the mid-2000s, and one car, T2057, is preserved at the Cité du Train museum in Mulhouse (top photo). But there is another gas turbine train we need to talk about, the one that first bore the letters TGV...
A few views of the Saar and Mosel rivers in Germany, which recently burst their banks due to heavy rain. The lower levels of the multi-lane motorway through Saarbrucken (second picture) were underwater, and the historic towns of Trier (top) and Cochem (below), which I have fond memories of, were flooded too.
Hoping that the communities can recover soon.
