FRANCE: RFF has completed a €50m project to upgrade and electrify the 36 km route between Motteville and Montérolier-Buchy, enabling freight trains from the port of Le Havre to reach Amiens, northeastern France, the Benelux countries and Germany without negotiating the rail bottlenecks of Rouen and the Paris region.

The single-track route now has sufficient capacity to offer paths for up to 30 freight trains a day. It is expected to offer significant savings on end-to-end journey times, as much as 50% according to RFF.

Work has taken three years to complete and has included track renewals to raise the maximum speed to 100 km/h, resignalling with automatic block and KVB intermittent ATP, and level crossing automation.

The French government provided 47% of the total cost, with the Haute-Normandie region contributing 27·2%, European sources 12·2%, the département of Seine-Maritime 6·8% and RFF 6·8%.