Aurélien Fleurot 7:30 a.m., September 19, 2021

On the occasion of the fortieth anniversary of the TGV, already celebrated on Friday with announcements of major projects, Heritage Days this weekend will allow aficionados of the railway world to discover, all over France, the underside of this hexagonal saga. 

The European Heritage Days (EJP) are placed, this year, under the sign of the 40 years of the TGV, anniversary celebrated with the announcement of new railway projects by Emmanuel Macron on Friday.

The SNCF offers many activities in the stations, all this weekend with, in the spotlight, the very first trains, in particular those which set high speed records.

An exhibition in Mulhouse, Gare de Lyon activities ...

The program is called "TGV Generations", in the plural, of course: four decades at the heart of the SNCF program are retraced.

It will be possible to go behind the scenes of the Saint-Charles stations in Marseille, Saint-Jean in Bordeaux or even Nîmes Pont du Gard.

These are, of course, TGV stations.

No less than 13 SNCF sites open their doors to the public.

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The Cité du Train in Mulhouse is going to inaugurate a new exhibition dedicated to high speed and many events are planned from Saturday at the Gare de Lyon in Paris.

The curious will be able in particular to discover the new model of the future TGV M, alias the "TGV of the future".

Thanks to passionate railway workers, it will be possible to get on the very first trains of the famous orange TGVs.

"Show the evolution of the TGV"

Antoine Leroy is one of these railway workers;

he will offer visitors the opportunity to board the cabin of train number 16. "It was the train that broke the world record in February 1981, at 380 km / h," he explains.

"Who remembers that there used to be telephone booths in the 1990s? Now we have TGV units that have Wi-Fi on board. We're trying to show all this evolution."

And for record lovers, the technicentre of Villeneuve Saint-Georges, in Val-de-Marne, will host the three TGVs on Sunday afternoon which set the three speed records: 1981, 1990 and 2007 with for the first times, the three conductors of these trains together.