French 30km rail freight line to reopen after major renovation work
A 30 kilometres stretch of a railway line between Château-Gontier-sur-Mayenne and Sablé-sur-Sarthe, located in the Mayenne département in centre-west France, is being rebuilt in order to re-launch rail freight services, which will handle around 80,000 tonnes of bulk goods annually, with trains operating at speeds of up to 40 kilometres/hour.
Work began in September last year and is scheduled for completion in May 2024. The line’s poor state meant it had been threatened with permanent closure, but a funding package totalling almost 34 million euros – 65 per cent of the amount financed by regional and local government authorities and the remaining 35 per cent by the state – was secured for its renovation.
Ageing infrastructure
“The ageing infrastructure posed safety issues, and we could no longer guarantee traffic beyond 2023,” Maxime Boisson, project development manager, Brittany/Pays de Loire region, at French rail network manager SNCF Réseau, told French radio station, France Bleu.
“We were handed the task of carrying out the integral renovation of the line, which would allow rail freight services to be maintained over the next 20 years and beyond.”
The project’s specifications made provision for the renewal of all of the rails on the line, the track dating back to before the First World War and for signalling installations and a level crossing to be replaced.
Multimodal hub in the re-making
Two shippers have been regular users of the line: metallurgical products specialist Maisonneuve and waste management firm Séché Environnement.
“Their current requirements are for two trains per week – around 80,000 tonnes annually. But they are planning to increase their traffic by 25-30 per cent in the short-term,” Boisson said. Each freight train means 50 trucks are being taken off the road.
The re-opening of the line will also see the re-activation of a multimodal hub run by the public authorities in Château-Gontier, which was shut down in 2016, providing scope to attract more shippers to rail freight, he added.
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