TEN-T funds modernise French rail line

A section of French rail network from Mulhouse to Chalampé on the German border has been inaugurated to passenger traffic as part of a European Union supported project. The TEN-T funded project involves a 17.5 km section of French single-track rail infrastructure; the modernised section, supported by US$903,000 of EU funds, will allow faster connections to and from Mülheim in Germany. The project contributes to the TEN-T Priority Project 24 Lyon/Genova-Basel-Duisburg-Rotterdam/Antwerp railway axis, an esse
December 10, 2012 Read time: 2 mins
A section of French rail network from Mulhouse to Chalampé on the German border has been inaugurated to passenger traffic as part of a 1816 European Union supported project.

The TEN-T funded project involves a 17.5 km section of French single-track rail infrastructure; the modernised section, supported by US$903,000 of EU funds, will allow faster connections to and from Mülheim in Germany.  The project contributes to the TEN-T Priority Project 24 Lyon/Genova-Basel-Duisburg-Rotterdam/Antwerp railway axis, an essential step in linking the German and French networks on the Rotterdam/Duisburg-Lyon corridor.

This section will be opened to commercial passenger traffic for the first time in over 30 years, having previously only been used for freight services.

The project consisted of various works aimed at modernising the rail section, notably:

• Upgrading of the line’s signalling equipment
• Strengthening of the track foundations by replacing the ballast to enable continuous speeds of up to 90 km/h
• Automation of three level crossings

On completion of the ancillary works in December 2012, travelling times on the section will be reduced by 10 minutes and speed will be increased from 70 to 90 km/h, thus rendering rail more competitive against other less energy-efficient transport modes.  From August 2013 high speed trains between Paris, Lyon or Marseille and Barcelona in the Mediterranean region will be able to use this part of rail infrastructure to transit through to Freiburg-im-Breisgau in Germany.

The 6998 TEN-T Executive Agency (TEN-T EA), which has managed the project from its start, and the 1690 European Commission welcomes the inauguration as an important milestone for rail transport in the EU.

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Smoothing the path to reducing traffic pollution
    October 22, 2014
    David Crawford reviews a new approach to traffic smoothing. A key objective for the Californian city of Bakersfield’s upgraded traffic operations centre (TOC), which opened in June 2014, is to help improve living conditions in a region with one of the worst air quality problems in the US. The TOC is speeding up the smoothing of traffic flows by delivering faster and better-informed traffic signal retiming and synchronisation.
    Read More
  • ASECAP conference debates EU’s changes to concessions
    April 30, 2015
    Colin Sowman picks some highlights from a one- day ASECAP Conference about the EU's new regulations on Concessions. ASECAP, the association of European tolling companies, has outlined the scale of the challenge facing authorities and tolling companies in complying with the European Union’s Directives 2014/23/EU and 2014/24/EU in a new report and at a special conference in Brussels.
    Read More
  • EU urged to green-light revised cross-border enforcement proposal
    October 9, 2014
    Road safety campaigners and European traffic police have welcomed the agreement by EU transport ministers to back a change to rules on cross-border enforcement of traffic offences such as speeding. This comes on the heels of an Institute of Advanced Motorists report that 23,295 overseas drivers have escaped UK speeding penalties since January 2014. The European Commission published a revised cross-border enforcement law in July in response to a European Court of Justice ruling in May that said the exi
    Read More
  • Progress towards a pan-European cooperative infrastructure
    July 17, 2012
    Kallistratos Dionelis, General Secretary of ASECAP, makes the case for a lightly regulated, staged progression towards a pan-European cooperative infrastructure environment, the achievement of which should look to engender cooperation between the public and private sectors. Such an approach, he says, is the only real path to success.
    Read More

Highlighted Content