TGV

TGV

Jean-Charles Bazin

CC500-GroupA – What does TGV stand for? Whereas this acronym is completely unknown for most of people, TGV is simply trying to... conquer the world! TGV derives from the French expression “Train a Grande Vitesse” which means high-speed train. Last month, this “bullet train” has largely overcome the speed record on railroads which is a good opportunity to look back on this amazing scientific project. First, historical information will be introduced. Then, current position of TGV will be analyzed. Finally, the future of TGV in the world will be presented.

Historical information

In sixties, less and less people used to take train in France. SNCF, the national enterprise that owns almost all of France's railway system, has taken a risky gamble: if trains go faster, more people will choose train for traveling. At this time, a single high speed train existed in the world: the Japanese Shinkansen. Therefore, French government has put a lot of effort in research to develop a national high speed train: the “train a grande vitesse” TGV was born. The first TGV prototype was powered by gas turbine and reached a top speed of 318 km/h in 1975. However due to the oil crisis of 1973, gas turbines were not economically viable and politics drastically decided to make TGV a full electric wheeled train by overhead electrified lines thanks to the many French nuclear power stations, which preserves the energetic independence of the country.

The French TGV is the fastest wheeled train in the world

Current Position

TGV has gathered an impressive list of world records. The most satisfying award for French government is that one month ago, TGV has established a new speed record on rails: 574.8 km/h. Therefore TGV is still the fastest wheeled train, far ahead from the wheeled Shinkansen that has simply reached 443 km/h. However one may notice that the magnetic levitation version of the Shinkansen had reached 581 km/h in 2003.

Another recent record has been established in May 2006 when TGV (in his Eurostar version) has run the longest non-stop journey in the world. The 1421 km separating Cannes from London have been traveled in only 7 hours 25 minutes. Note that this performance broke the previous record set by also a TGV travelling from two geographically opposite French cities: Calais at the top North near England and Marseille in South lying in the Mediterranean Sea (1067 km in 3hours 29 minutes).

Finally, TGV is the only train in the world that has recorded no single fatality for more than 30 years in operation.

Future plan

In 2006, French president Jacques Chirac has pledged that no SNCF train would be powered by fossil fuels by 20 years. Obviously, most of trains do not use fuels directly, so it means that electricity used by trains must be produced by other energy, especially nuclear power. Actually, current nuclear power stations already generate most of electricity used by SNCF trains.

TGV has an important role to play abroad to enhance its development. After 12 years of partnership with ALSTOM (the manufacturer of TGV), South Korea has operated its first high-speed journey in 2004. This step was very important for both nations: Korea for a more uniform development of the country (capital at the north, heavy industries at the south, etc...) and France for a living advertisement of is know-how and its expertise. Clearly, the next step is to commercialize TGV to China, and also to USA for their first high speed train.

The longest non-stop train journey in the world performed in May 2006 by TGV in Eurostar version transporting crew of Da Vinci Code from London to Cannes for the Cannes film festival

To conclude, the risky gamble taken by SNCF in early sixties has been a success: TGV has carried near two billion passengers. The economic policy of SNCF and ALSTOM is clear crystal: develop a perfect railroad system in France and present it as the best train in the world. That is why we can expect that SNCF will try its best to develop new systems to beat the Japanese Shinkansen. The remaining question is: how many years will be needed to reach the 7 km/h that separate TGV and Shinkansen?