Roadworks between Paris and Orléans: SNCF meets with concerned users

"We know this is going to be a somewhat difficult time for travelers, but we are committed to keeping them informed so that they can organize their daily lives as soon as possible," said Francesca Aceto, regional director of SNCF Réseau in the Centre-Val de Loire region.

Before a public meeting held on Monday in Toury, a small town in Eure-et-Loir located on the route of this line which links Paris to Toulouse via Orléans and Limoges (POLT line), she considered it "important" to meet the users concerned, where information posters already adorn the station.

That evening, around twenty curious travelers turned out, seeking details about this major project, the first preparatory phase of which began at the end of April. It will result in the interruption of train services during time slots between 10:00 a.m. and 15:00 p.m., especially from mid-May.

The worst of the disruption is then expected from August, with the start of the main phase of operations.

"Elastic Days"

The outages will then run from 09:30 a.m. to 17:30 p.m., Monday to Friday, until January, before the work is finally completed at the end of March 2026.

"It's going to be a real pain," said Valérie Loiseau, a daily train user to Paris, who came to ask for details on the "organization."

The cancellation of trains "will force us to have flexible working days," she predicts, not really reassured by the summary presented.

This total interruption of traffic "could have been avoided," Jean-Noël Boisseleau, vice-president of Urgence Ligne POLT, told AFP at the end of April, pointing to a "very unsatisfactory" situation.

The operation, which involves completely renovating 70 km of track (rails, ballast and sleepers) in Loiret, between Boisseaux and Les Aubrais, using a factory train, could not take place at night to preserve the circulation of freight trains, according to Francesca Aceto, who described it in front of the audience as "the biggest project of the year".

"Without this industrial organization, this work would last several years," she explains.

A transport plan, including the deployment of a few replacement buses during interruptions, was presented by the Centre-Val de Loire region and SNCF Voyageurs, which also announced an increase in train frequency during peak hours, outside of periods of interruptions.

"Tetris"

It is 40 kilometers away, at the Orléans technical center, the train maintenance center, that some trains will be assembled with three trains, instead of two normally, to provide the 1.300 seats promised as compensation, during peak hours.

"We receive the trains in three pieces and, here, we'll assemble them. We'll have to play a game of Tetris," predicts site director Luc Girard.

Even at the maintenance center, it was necessary to "review the organization" of the schedules of the 70 personnel, to adjust their presence "to more judicious times," in the morning and evening, to be more "efficient."

Train maintenance activity will in fact be more extensive during the day, when traffic will be cut, when "75% of its activity" is usually concentrated at night.

In recent years, elected officials and local authorities have often pointed out a degraded line and highlighted "essential" work undertaken since 2018.

In mid-April, hundreds of users and local elected officials from the Paris-Orléans-Limoges-Toulouse and Paris-Clermont-Ferrand lines even traveled to the capital in two "trains of anger" to demand more investment for these "devastated lines."

In Loiret, the project had already been postponed twice. Costing 133 million euros, it is entirely financed by SNCF Réseau.