• These one-class connections will be provided by Corail coaches refreshed and repainted in pink, from spring 2022.

  • Tickets will only be sold on the Internet and will cost between 10 and 30 euros.

A new way to "make you prefer the train"?

SNCF wants to launch in spring 2022 classic, pink, mainline trains at low prices on Paris-Lyon and Paris-Nantes, she announced Thursday.

They will be operated by a new subsidiary based on the low-cost Ouigo TGV model.

“Ouigo Vitesse Classique” will offer two daily round trips between Paris-Bercy and Lyon-Perrache via Villeneuve-Saint-Georges, Melun, Dijon, Chalon-sur-Saône and Mâcon in 4:45 to 5:15 from end to end.

To go to Nantes, three round trips will be offered from Paris-Austerlitz via Juvisy, Massy-Palaiseau, Versailles, Chartres, Le Mans and Angers or Juvisy, Les Aubrais, Blois, Saint-Pierre-des-Corps, Saumur and Angers.

Here again, you should not be in a hurry: the journey time will be 3:30 to 4:15 (compared to 2 to 2:30 in a classic TGV).

Between 10 and 30 euros per ticket

These single-class connections will be provided by Corail coaches refreshed and repainted in pink, "with very low and fixed prices, until the last moment," noted Alain Krakovitch, director of Voyages SNCF. As with Ouigo, tickets will only be sold on the Internet: they will cost between 10 and 30 euros depending on the period - peak or off-peak - and the destination, and 5 euros for children, with options such as luggage.

The ambition is to sell 65% of tickets for less than 20 euros, according to Alain Krakovitch “It's extra train. (…) Our objective is really to gain market share from the road ”- FlixBus, BlaBlaCar and individual cars - explained Christophe Fanichet, CEO of SNCF Voyageurs. The new service, successor to the “100% Eco Intercités” which circulated to various destinations between 2010 and 2020, must offer a “snacking” service for itinerant sales.

Ouigo Vitesse Classique will be operated by a new wholly-owned SNCF Voyageurs subsidiary, called Oslo and employing “nearly 80 people” (volunteers), with more intensive use of equipment and a reorganization of work making staff more versatile.

It is about an “experiment”, the new service being asked to be profitable in two years, noted Christophe Fanichet.

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