My contract in Saint-Étienne ended in April, but today’s was the first train I could get to travel back home because of Covid-19 confinement.
What with strikes at the end of last year and fear of pestilence for the last few months, there haven’t been many opportunities to take advantage of my Carte Avantage Weekend. This is annoying, as Saint-Étienne is perfectly placed for journeys to Switzerland, Spain and Italy, so despite the length of today’s journey – ten hours, station to station – I was glad to be travelling, at least.
The SNCF app appears to be selling only second-class tickets at the moment, but as the trains are running at half capacity, everyone gets a window-seat and is spared the pleasure of rubbing knees with a total stranger.
TER 86867 left Saint-Étienne Châteaucreux at 10h20 and arrived about an hour later at Lyon Part-Dieu, where I had to wait for two hours for the TGV to Paris. Because of all the measures in place, there was literally nothing to do, so I had a little time to read, do some Duolingo and despair at the cost of a bottle of water from the vending machines. I did notice that Lyon has some funky-looking trams.
Queueing was an interesting affair; there are circular markings on the floors of stations to indicate to people where they can stand while maintaining a safe distance from each other. it’s quite fun, in an apocalyptic kind of way, as you feel as if you could be beamed up at any moment. After standing in a variety of circles for quite a few minutes, I eventually took my not-first-class-but-almost window seat on TGV inoui 6618 and slept, mostly, until we arrived at the Gare de Lyon.
I made an effort to avoid Paris when booking my tickets as it’s in a zone rouge, but this wasn’t possible due to the current reduced service. My worst nightmare would have been trying to get from the Gare de Lyon to Montparnasse in under an hour with three bags on a reduced service metro wearing a mask, but as I booked a ticket to Limoges, all I had to do was cross the Seine, have a picnic next to the river, and then catch my connecting Intercités service.
Intercités 3655 left on time. I used to take the Paris – Limoges train every weekend (and then a connecting TER to La Coquille if possible) when I was working in Paris, so I’m quite fond of the old Intercités service. The trains aren’t as shiny or fast or glamorous as the TGV but are cheaper and more relaxing and were – at the time – only a little bit slower than the TGV from Angoulême. I always used to think that a first-class ticket on the Intercités was better value than on the TGV because the seats were bigger, you had more time to enjoy them – and the buffet comes to you on a trolley.
When I first arrived in France I always had the impression of being in first class, surrounded by Frenchmen drinking wine, smoking a Gaulouises and reading Le Monde while sitting in big comfy armchairs.
I may well have over-romanticised this image.
The most striking thing for me on the Paris-Limoges line is the Orléans section of Aérotrain test track that runs for approximately 20km alongside the railway line between Saran and Ruan. The Aérotrain was one of those mad French inventions of the 1960s to transport people at speed by literally bolting a jet-engine to the back of a hovertrain and then propelling it down a concrete monorail at 430kph, a speed the TGV would not achieve until the nineties.
Various circumstances saw the project fail, but the track is still visible from the train, save for a few sections that were demolished to make way for motorways. It’s most visible in the approach to Les Aubrais Orléans as it gets quite close to the current railway line.
After a few more little naps and a go on the bottle of wine I packed in my lunchbox, we pulled into Limoges at 20h03.
Limoges Bénédictins was finished in 1929 and is a glorious station with stained glass and a dome, which was destroyed by fire in the 1990s but subsequently restored. Its clock tower is taller than that of the Gare de Lyon and it is frequently cited as being one of the most beautiful stations in France – so much so that it’s even had a starring role (blink and you’ll miss it!) in a Chanel advert, Train de Nuit. It was listed as a historical monument in 1975 and it is unique in being built above the platforms.
