A Peek Inside France's TGV M, the Modular Train Setting a New Standard for High-Speed Rail
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// Regular readers of this newsletter will know that I'm an ardent advocate for high-speed rail. (I suppose the blog's name is a teeny, tiny giveaway.) The electric-powered bullet train is a proven technology, one now in its seventh decade, that provides efficient, comfortable, and sustainable transportation in Europe, Asia, and now, North Africa. If you've had the opportunity to ride a TGV, a shinkansen, or an AVE, you won't have to be convinced: the epiphany, as you stroll aboard in an architecturally-stunning station in the heart of Strasbourg, Kyoto, or Madrid, is nearly instantaneous. As a form of inter-city travel, railways beat runways and freeways hands down, especially for trips between destinations up to 800 kilometers (500 miles) apart.
People trot out a whole bunch of excuses—cultural, geographical, historic, economic—for why true bullet-train networks are absent from the Americas, Great Britain, Australia and New Zealand. All of them are bad. The simple fact is that we should have started the project of building modern inter-city rail networks in the Anglosphere and Latin America at least a generation ago. Because we didn't, we're now paying the price, and get to gaze in envy at those parts of the world where people are boarding sleek, ultra-modern trains, while we moan: "Why can't we have nice things here?"
Take the TGV M, which Alstom unveiled to the public last week in Paris's Gare de Lyon. The train à grande vitesse (TGV) is now a mature technology in France, the second country, after Japan, to really throw itself into the development of bullet trains. (I'm aware some Italians might object to that statement.) The first TGV, code-named C01, was something to see. Its designer, Jacques Cooper, whose specialty was sports cars, modeled its aerodynamic nose on the front of a Porsche Murène (see above), instructing his clients to envision the train as “metal flowing through space.” It was bright orange on the outside, with clementine-hued leatherette seats inside, and—this being the eighties—phone booths in each car, and ashtrays in every armrest. Most of all, it was fast, faster even than the Shinkansen: in its first year of operation, 1981, the orange streak set a world record of 380 kilometers (236 miles) per hour.
Since then, TGVs have continued to break world speed records for conventional (non-magnetic levitation) rail; as I wrote in this post, the current record, a blazing 574.8 kms (357 miles) per hour, was set by a TGV in 2007. The TGV M is in fact the fifth generation of TGV developed by Alstom (formerly Alsthom, with a not-very-French sounding "h"), is the French multinational rolling stock manufacturer. Alstom itself refers to the trainset as the Avelia Horizon— "TGV M" is the name given in deference to its largest client, SNCF, France's national rail operator. The TGV M is designed to have a maximum operating speed of 350 kms (217.5 miles) per hour, though in practice they will top out at 320 kms (199 miles) per hour on French tracks.
The train, which was ten years in the making, has several notable features. First of all, it can carry a lot of passengers. France is deeply committed to supplanting inter-city travel by airplane with inter-city travel by plane. To do that, it runs trains between its major cities not only quickly and frequently, but also by putting a lot of bums in a lot of seats. Those seats are found on the upper and lower levels of bi-level passenger coaches, known in France as "duplexes." The previous generation, the Alstom TGV Duplex, typically carries 630 passengers. The TGV M, in a nine-car formation, can carry 740 passengers. (Compare that to an Airbus A380, the world's largest passenger airplane, which in a typical configuration carries 525 passengers.) Though the train is the same length as its predecessor, about 200 metres (656 feet), it manages to fit nine cars where the previous duplex TGV fit just eight. How? The length of the power cars at each end of the train has been reduced by 4 metres, while one metre has been shaved off each passenger coach. Unlike the airlines, they've done this without compressing legs. Somewhat magically, each seat on the TGV M has five centimeters more space at knee-level than seats on the old Duplexes.
The TGV M is also 20 percent more energy efficient than the TGV Duplex. In an elegant way, when the train reduces speed, its motors become energy-generating dynamos, which in turn transmit electricity to the overhead wires to feed the network of EDF, France's national electricity provider. (The magic of regenerative braking, as it is known, is worth a blog post of its own.) The combination of greater seating capacity and lower energy consumption means that the TGV M produces 50 percent fewer carbon emissions per passenger than the TGV Duplex, which was already responsible for a fraction of the per-passenger emissions of airplanes in the sky and cars on highways.
All told, the TGV M is a repository of 400 innovations—minor and major improvements over its predecessor. One I love is the fact that, as it rolls, the train stores electricity in a battery, which, in the case of a power outage—meaning, no more electricity from those overhead wires—allows the train to continue to run at full speed until it reaches the next section of powered track. Thanks to their "éco-stationnement" feature, they even cause less noise pollution when they pull into a station: the motors and ventilation systems are 15 decibels quieter than previous trains, with noise detectors ensuring they never get to loud in built-up, urban areas.
Another beautiful feature: their accessibility. Users of wheelchairs and other mobility devices can roll right on, and there is a turntable on board that allows wheelchair users to roll on and make their way to an area reserved for wheelchair users autonomously, without outside help. Jon Worth, the expert in cross-border rail travel in Europe, raised concerns last week that the TGV M wasn't built for platforms outside of France, which have a different height. In fact, as he writes in this very thorough blog post, Alstom contacted him to inform him that the car with the wheelchair ramp has pneumatic suspension, which allows it to lower—like a "kneeling" city bus—to the level of a platform so those in wheelchairs (or pushing strollers) can easily board. There is also room for bicycles—not a lot, two in first class, six in economy—but at least you no longer have to use the folding kind.
I find the interior design pleasingly mod, as in, multi-coloured, curvilinear 1960s mod; turns out it's a collaboration between a French affiliate of SNCF and Japan's Nendo. The windows are noticeably larger (which will make the approach to the Midi a sun-drenched delight; you'll find more photos in this article in Le Figaro.) The exterior is far less striking; the off-white livery is about as bland as a Deutsche Bahn ICE. Alstom seems to be prioritizing function over form in this iteration of the TGV, which may not be a bad idea: I suspect the demands of style impinged on usable interior space in earlier TGVs.
Most crucially, the "M" in TGV M stands for "Modulable." (Or maybe, "Modularité" — it seems to depend on who you ask.) According to David Goeres, responsible for overseeing the project: "We've built a train where everything, or almost everything, can be changed: the seats, the configurations of the coaches, the on-board technologies. It's a bit like an Ikea train, where the standardization of the mounting points allows for total flexibility." The really crucial aspect of this modularity is found in the motrice, the power car, just behind the driver's cabin. Because different countries in Europe have different security systems on their networks, a train has to be able to interact safely and efficiently with the signals and sensors on that network. The TGV M is built with room for "armoires de securité" (electronic security modules), which manage the security demands of the foreign network, to be slotted into place. In ecological terms, this is a pretty big step forward: it allows the TGV M to cross borders, and operate throughout Europe, obviating the need to design and build costly trainsets tailored to each nation's rail network. (For a walk-through of the more technical side of the TGV M, with Goeres himself, check out this YouTube video, made last year, before the official launch; it's in French, but you can click on the subtitles.)
The first TGV M will be in commercial service on the Paris - Lyon - Marseille route, France's busiest, early in 2026. Unlike a piece of furniture purchased from Ikea, though, you won't find the TGV M put out to the curb for les éboueurs to collect in a year or two. According to Alstom, the trainsets are designed to still be on the rails in 2070.
I'm overdue for a trip to France. A trip to Provence on a TGV M Inoui might be a good way to remedy that problem...
THE LATEST PASSENGER RAIL NEWS:
Zone 1: The Americas
As noted above, the TGV M is also known as the Avelia Horizon. It evolved from the design of the Avelia Liberty, which Amtrak is bringing to the tracks of the DC-New York-Boston Northeast Corridor...well, any time now. The long-awaited launch of the new trainsets, which Amtrak is calling the NextGen Acela, set for Spring 2025, will bring trains capable of 160 miles (257 kms) an hour to the Corridor. One major problem remains, however: the tracks, heavily used by freight trains, only allow for operation at that kind of speed for very short stretches. So, while we can have nice things in North America—we can't use them yet, not really. (Here's the link.)
Zone 2: Europe and Africa
Interestingly, you'll also be able to ride the new Avelia Horizon in Morocco, which has purchased 18 TGV M trainsets—thanks to a €781 million loan from France—to run on its growing high-speed network.
(Here's the link.)
