30th TGV anniversary this month, Rhin-Rhone line opened

France’s TGV High Speed Rail turns 30 - Rail News - etravelblackboard.com

The revolution of high speed rail in France, the TGV, turns an incredible 30 years old in September 2011. When the link opened, France captured the world’s imagination by developing trains that travelled 260km/h on conventional tracks. In the last 30 years that has increased to 320km/h, and over 1.7 billion passengers have enjoyed this exceptional service.

LGV = Ligne à Grande Vitesse = High-Speed Line
TGV = Train à Grand Vitesse = High-Speed Train
On 27 September 1981, SNCF started TGV service on the first LGV, the LGV Sud-Est ("Southeast High-Speed Line"), between Paris and Lyon. Since then, France has built several more lines between France's more populous cities, with a current total of about 1900 km.

Sarkozy inaugurates Rhine - Rhone high-speed line - International Railway Journal
However, it won't go into service until December 11. It runs
Villers les Pots, 32 km east of Dijon
Besançon
Petit-Croix, 42 km west of Mulhouse
LGV length: 140 km

No word on when the rest of the Rhin-Rhône lines will be built. These include lines from Dijon to the LGV Sud-Est and Lyon.

Work starts on LGV Est Phase 2 (Railway Gazette, 19 November 2010)
It will extend the existing LGV Est from Baudrecourt to Strasbourg, and it will be done by 2016.

Tours – Bordeaux concession signed (Railway Gazette, 17 June 2011)
LGV Bretagne PPP contract signed (Railway Gazette, 29 July 2011)
Construction on both lines should start next year.

California High Speed Rail Blog » Nicolas Sarkozy Opens LGV Rhin-Rhône
Robert Cruikshank had a chuckle at the populations of the towns at the ends of that LGV:
Villers-les-Pots 1020
Petit-Croix 339
Smaller than the populations of Borden and Corcoran, at the original ends of the first segment of the CA HSR line to be built.

And this is exactly what the naysayers in the U.S. on high speed rail miss. The TGV system is just that -- a system, a network. The trains run into and out of century-old terminals at each end of the original Paris-Lyon high speed line, and they also run on the existing rail network at various points. I rode Paris-Lyon in 1992, about a decade after it opened, and later in the same trip rode from Rennes, in Brittany, to Paris on the then brand-new LGV Est. From Rennes to Le Mans, the train ran in mixed traffic, passing freights and commuter trains and crossing level road crossings. At Le Mans we diverged onto the LGV Est and covered the 140 miles to Paris in an hour.

So the California HSR from Borden to Corcoran can be connected to the existing network, and the trains can use regular tracks, at "normal" 79 MPH speeds, for part of the trip until the whole thing gets built. That's how the Europeans have done it, the French especially.

lpetrich wrote:California High Speed Rail Blog » Nicolas Sarkozy Opens LGV Rhin-Rhône
Robert Cruikshank had a chuckle at the populations of the towns at the ends of that LGV:
Villers-les-Pots 1020
Petit-Croix 339
Smaller than the populations of Borden and Corcoran, at the original ends of the first segment of the CA HSR line to be built.

Wow, and people call CA's HSR project a "train to nowhere."

France opens HS line amid huge timetable shake-up - International Railway Journal

TODAY marks the start of commercial services on France's latest high-speed line - TGV Rhin-Rhône - and a major reorganisation of services in which 85% of trains have been rescheduled.

Paris - Mulhouse - Zuerich trains will be diverted from LGV Est to LGV Sud-Est and this new line (LGV Rhin-Rhône), cutting travel time by 30 min to 4 h.

The route will also be used by trains between Strasbourg and southern France.

This rescheduling will be done for 4 reasons: the opening of this LGV, trackwork, schedule simplification, and increase in demand.