He was the symbol of the difference between speech and action. The early fruit train connecting Perpignan to Rungis, which was used mainly to transport fruit and vegetables from Spain, should be relaunched soon. The state intends to develop rail highways, and make tolls free for freight trains, Prime Minister Jean Castex announced on Monday as part of the revival of rail freight.
“There are tolls to take the paths (...) that the freight trains take with the passenger trains, so we have decided that these tolls should be free until the end of 2020 and a division by two, this is a very significant effort, in 2021, in the price of these tolls ”, declared the Prime Minister on the occasion of a trip to the combined transport site of Bonneuil-sur-Marne (Val-de- Marl).
"It is an extremely strong signal that the government is giving and it is a first step in what I will call the rail reconquest plan," he added. This represents 63 million euros in 2020 and another 63 million in 2021, according to Matignon. Thanks to these incentives, the state hopes to see 20,000 fewer heavy goods vehicles on the roads in 2021, corresponding to 425,000 tonnes of CO2 emitted less.
Sète-Calais and Bayonne-Cherbourg also relaunched
The government also has “the firm intention of reopening and developing rail highways,” added Jean Castex. Calls for projects will be launched by the end of the year for the Bayonne-Cherbourg, Sète-Calais and Perpignan-Rungis lines, which the State would like to see extended from Antwerp to Barcelona.
"You have before you a Prime Minister who was bruised by the Perpignan-Rungis affair, the primeurs train", suspended for a year, confided Jean Castex, elected municipal in Prades (Pyrénées-Orientales).
Until July 2019, the “early bird train”, made up of refrigerated wagons, transported fruit and vegetables produced in the Pyrénées-Orientales to the Rungis market every night. The line was to be relaunched at the end of 2019 to the multimodal platform of Valenton (Val-de-Marne), rather than to Rungis where the station must be modernized, but customers have not rushed.
Combined rail-road transport, "it's the future"
Jean Castex, who was accompanied by SNCF CEO Jean-Pierre Farandou, and ministers Emmanuelle Wargon (Housing), Barbara Pompili (Ecological transition) and Jean-Baptiste Djebbari (Transport), also said he wanted to develop combined rail transport. road, because "it is the future".
"We must also restructure the management of rail freight, improve its competitiveness," he said without further clarification. One of the challenges is the modernization of the rail network, to which the government is spending "several billion euros per year until 2022", according to Jean-Philippe Djebarri.
In this context, Ivan Stempezynski, president of the national combined transport group, asked Jean Castex to give SNCF Réseau, track manager, the means to fulfill his ambitions.
Planet
Bouches-du-Rhône: Soon 225,000 additional trucks on the roads of the region?
Economy
Perpignan: The primeurs train bound for Rungis back on track
- Perpignan
- Train
- Economy
- Jean Castex
- SNCF
- Languedoc-Roussillon
- Rungis