Train à grande vitesse causes distress

By Tom Davey

To ride on the French train à grande vitesse is an almost unbelievable experience in ultra-high-speed travel, rivalling the virtual reality of Huxley's Brave New World. As a boy, I once sat in a bus going from Paris to Nice. While the scenery was a delight, the cramped conditions on a ten hour journey remain a painful memory to this day. Today, there is little actual sensation of speed as the TGV whisks passengers along from Paris to the Mediterranean at 300 kilometres an hour and the rock-like stability and passenger space makes it much more comfortable than cramped airline travel. And as railway stations are usually located in downtown areas, a TGV can equal and sometimes exceed the speed of jet travel when its convenient downtown location is factored into total travelling time.

The unmatched beauty of the Mediterranean can be reached in three hours from Paris, thanks to the TGVs. ES&E Photo - T. Davey

But now, two problems, which have long plagued airlines, are impacting on the TGV: noise, and vibration for buildings on the route of these engineering marvels. Protests are mounting. Earlier this year, a group of families gathered in the ultra-modern TGV railway station at Valence. They were not there to view the new super-speed service between Paris and Marseille, they were there to protest noise pollution. Protesters claimed the station is the only perfectly sound-proofed building on the 250 km link through Provence, where a double-decker train à grande vitesse may whoosh by at 300 km/hr. every four minutes with a noise said to rival a formula one racing car at maximum revs.

One home located 300 metres from the line, has had to put up with recorded noise levels up to 97 decibels at every TGV passage, while the state-owned railway company, which has built a series of sound barriers, estimates the average at 62 decibels.

French noise barriers incidently, are usually artistic architectural configurations instead of the monotonous slabs more common in North America.

Valence has seen trade drop by as much as 30% in its town centre because the new TGV station is in open country ­ a problem shared by Avignon (once a historic home of the Popes) in the Vaucluse. President Jacques Chirac, who inaugurated the line which puts the Mediterranean some three hours from Paris, sent an encouraging note of support to protesters, but he is likely to be called upon to back other complaints against the service that has already carried millions of passengers.

Meanwhile, shock waves from passing trains are shaking and said to cause huge cracks in the houses of several Provençal villages ­ a threat residents fear will increase, if the planned super-speed rail traffic is to be tripled.

The aviation industry has long been plagued by noise complaints which severely restricted airport expansion plans. TGV is now encountering equally severe noise problems which will challenge the superlative French engineering and scientific skills.

Another problem is more conventional ­ convergence of the TGV with the much slower traditional rail service. Since the super speed line opened, local train traffic has been thrown into confusion. Traditional commuter services from Arles, Aix-en-Provence and the Riviera sometimes arrive late because TGVs have priority.

The airlines too, are feeling the impact of TGV's performance. Passenger air travel between Lyon and Paris dropped dramatically with the arrival of the TGV.

When the French national railway introduced a three-hour train service on the 789 kilometre route from Paris to Marseille in May, 2000, Air France cut round-trip fares on the route to as little as (US) $70, vs (US) $84 for a second-class round-trip ticket on the TGV. Other airlines simply gave up. When Germany introduced its high-speed ICE trains in 1991, Lufthansa closed its Hanover-to-Frankfurt route. Air France has discontinued flights from Paris to Brussels.

It seems ironic that the speed of our oldest mechanical mode of travel, the railways, now seriously threatens the airways which long ruled the roost as the fastest way for travellers. But like the modern jet planes, TGVs may have to overcome the formidible acoustical problems which dogged another engineering marvel, the Anglo-French Concorde. It too once faced severe restrictions on its point-to-point journeys because of noise problems.

Unlike the Concorde, whose economic performance never matched its supersonic status, the TGVs have been wildly successful. But perhaps, too, the TGV now has its own sound barrier to overcome.