FRANCE: A ceremony was held at Mireville in eastern France on January 22 to mark the formal launch of civil works to reopen the railway from Nancy to Contrexéville via Vittel under a novel delivery model.
The project is being taken forward as a PPP between the regional authority and a private consortium, with the région hoping that the scheme could act as a template for the revival of more moribund rural lines across France.
The start of works come 18 months after the concession agreement was finalised between the Grand Est regional authority and the Nova 14 consortium of NGE Concessions (50%), operator Transdev (20%) and Banque des Territoires, part of the Caisse des Dépôts et Consignations Group (30%).
Renovation work worth €150m is being undertaken by nine companies from the NGE group.
TSO, TSO Signalisation, Offroy and Sages Rail will be responsible for the railway elements of the work, while Muller TP, NGE GC and SLD TP will handle earthworks, civil engineering and diversion of utilities. NGE Ingénierie will deal with design, along with Setec and JFS Architectes.
The project includes the renewal of 75 km of permanent way, rehabilitation of 12 stations and modernisation of 43 level crossings. A further 21 crossings will be closed.
Future services will be operated by a dedicated company formed by Transdev Rail (75%) and NGE Exploitation (25%) which will employ 65 staff, including 23 train drivers. The X73500 diesel railcars will be maintained at Mirecourt.
Around 550 000 passengers/year are expected to use the line, which will be served by up to 16 return trips a day from Nancy to Pont-Saint-Vincent and 14 from Nancy to Contrexéville; the journey time over the full route will be 1 h 10 min.
Before the line closed in 2016 it was served by just six return trips a day.
