Eurostar/Cl.378 operating internal TGV services for SNCF?

[jjb1970]

Last week when taking the Eurostar to Brussels I noticed that the TGV on the adjacent platform at Lille Europe was a 378 with SNCF markings. I've never seen this before and had no idea that SNCF had some of the Eurostar fleet for their own TGV services. Has this been going on long and does it involve many units? Apologies if this is an obvious question.

[phil-b259]

Last week when taking the Eurostar to Brussels I noticed that the TGV on the adjacent platform at Lille Europe was a 378 with SNCF markings. I've never seen this before and had no idea that SNCF had some of the Eurostar fleet for their own TGV services. Has this been going on long and does it involve many units? Apologies if this is an obvious question.

Its been going on for a good few years now.

 

From Wikipedia

 

Three of the Three Capitals sets owned by SNCF are in French domestic use on the TGV network, mainly between Paris and Lille in a variation on the standard silver and blue TGV livery. They sets were built to the same specification as the rest of the fleet, which saw them initially used on international services as well as French domestic routes. Later, the third rail pick up shoes and yellow front warning panels were removed.^[21] In 2007, SNCF enhanced the fleet by leasing six and a half of the seven redundant North of London sets, with one half-set remaining with Eurostar. The North of London sets were intended to provide Regional Eurostar services from Continental Europe to and from north of London, using the West Coast Main Line and the East Coast Main Line. These never came to fruition because of long proposed journey times and the proliferation of budget airlines offering lower fares. There were also issues with the relatively crude design of British Rail overhead lines and the logistics of getting the trains across London. SNCF's lease of the sets was scheduled to last until 2011, with an option for a further two years

[Fat Controller]

Last week when taking the Eurostar to Brussels I noticed that the TGV on the adjacent platform at Lille Europe was a 378 with SNCF markings. I've never seen this before and had no idea that SNCF had some of the Eurostar fleet for their own TGV services. Has this been going on long and does it involve many units? Apologies if this is an obvious question.

It's being going on for over a decade; the North of London sets (perhaps with one exception) and about seven of the SNCF-owned sets currently work on services such as Paris- Lille and Paris- Calais. Not sure about where else they go to. Quite bizarre seeing them pull into Calias Frethun (Low Level).

[jjb1970]

Red face time.....I have never noticed this before, shows how much I know about SNCF and the 378 fleet!! Thanks for the info!

[The Stationmaster]

It's being going on for over a decade; the North of London sets (perhaps with one exception) and about seven of the SNCF-owned sets currently work on services such as Paris- Lille and Paris- Calais. Not sure about where else they go to. Quite bizarre seeing them pull into Calias Frethun (Low Level).

Quite agree Brian - I travelled on one from Paris Nord to Lille in the year I retired from the big railway - 2000 - although at that time there was simply a sticker proclaiming SNCF on each side of the power car noses and that apart they were basically 100% Eurostar.

 

Wiki is somewhat off the mark (how unusual!) about the three 'extra' SNCF Three Capitals sets.  They were ordered by SNCF because there availability expectations for the fleet were considerably more conservative that those of the other two partners although as a result they always remained on SNCF's books and while they were used to cover Eurostar workings during times of set shortages they were never part of the full set pool for accounting/cost sharing purposes.  accordingly SNCf took them out of Eurostar operations at the first opportunity in order to use them on its domestic operations.

[jjb1970]

Thanks for the further info. I know this is a very different topic from Eurostar trains but mention of conservative availability of trains made me think of the very long station dwell times on some other European railways such as Belgium which indicates much more conservative operating practices than are normal in the UK.

[bmthtrains - David]

I think you mean class 373? A 378 is a London Overground train if I recall. Eurostar use 373 and soon 374

 

David

[jjb1970]

Apologies, yes, my mistake!

[The Stationmaster]

Thanks for the further info. I know this is a very different topic from Eurostar trains but mention of conservative availability of trains made me think of the very long station dwell times on some other European railways such as Belgium which indicates much more conservative operating practices than are normal in the UK.

Yes & no.  In the UK it has long been the norm to include Recovery Time, either identifiably as such or as part of the SRT (Sectional Running Time, aka P-P = Point- To-Point time), in the running time of the train on,, for many years, an approximate average of 1 minute if Recovery Time for every 50 miles running.

 

In contrast traditional continental practice was to not use recovery allowances within the running times but to increase station dwell times thus allowing time to be regained at a station although there are exceptions to this method - for example for major infrastructure schemes SNCB have used the practice of retiming to take account of such works with varying timetables to suit the staging of schemes but with public TT times remaining constant.

 

 

SNCB used to work under some very odd - to our eyes - constraints but in my experience of them they tended to be far more akin to British operating methods than some many of the other European mainland large Railways and were certainly massively less conservative than SNCF and even DB.  Generally SNCB timetabling and trainplanning practice in the 1990s, albeit not necessarily the technology involved, was pretty advanced in both a network sense and in adapting solutions to  problems.  In fact network wise they were way ahead of us in many respects - as group of Railtrack train planning managers found out when I arranged a visit to Belgium for them in the mid 1990s.  And as current operators I would rate SNCB head & shoulders above SNCF although some might see that as damning them with faint praise .

[jjb1970]

Thanks for the info. On the whole I find Belgian trains pretty good although there is a wide variation in the ambiance of the trains from very good to very basic. The prices are very attractive and with a simple fares structure. I find buying tickets there very simple and hassle free with none of the pitfalls of avoid peak hours, choosing operators, avoiding certain routes etc. I spend a lot of time in Brussels and when time allows I enjoy going off on the train for a few hours to see a bit more. Something I do find is that working for a company with offices in pretty much every country is that it doesn't matter where you go (except maybe Japan) every country seems to have the same whinges about their local train services that we hear here in the UK all the time.