TGV

Since the first high speed line was built between the hub capital of Paris and Lyon in 1981, the TGV (Train a Grande Vitesse) has pushed into Belgium, Germany, Switzerland, Holland, the UK and Italy. We travelled from Geneva to Paris by TGV in just over three hours.

In some areas, domestic air traffic figures in France have been completely decimated. Every TGV line so far built has succeeded in covering its construction costs within a few years of operation and has seen a huge modal shift from road and air to rail.

In order to run at speeds around 300km/h, dedicated tracks have been built. Naturally enough, these are called LGVs -- Lignes a Grande Vitesse. They run all over France, but only about 30% of the TGV network runs on these LGVs. On normal railways the TGV only reaches 220km/h.

Gare de Lyon, one of the main Paris TGV stations

TGVs at Gare de Lyon

There are hundreds of complete TGV train sets, in several models. On the latest version the cars are sealed so that they can pass through railway tunnels at high speed without bursting passengers' eardrums. There is even a special postal TGV. (Click on the link to see one.)

Click here to learn more about the TGV than you would ever want to know. If you are a real fanatic, you can even print out paper models of complete TGV train sets to assemble.