TGV, and thoughts on Amtrak “High Speed Rail”

Yesterday, my wife and I took the TGV from Barcelona to Paris. Here are some thoughts.

First Class on TGV IS LUXURIOUS. Outlets at your seat, wide and comfortable seating, solid tables with room for the fat guy, 100Mbps Wi-Fi, the bistro lounge no more than 3 cars away with an excellent selection of beer and wine (good eats, too) and €80 per person.

SNCF, like DB and its InterCity fleet, has invested substantial funds on elevating or sinking track to straighten out routings within cities. At peak speed in the last couple hours, our train was zipping along at 280kmph (173mph).

Amtrak, in order to get true HSR, needs not to buy land, but buy an overhead easement to straighten its tracks.

Colonel, sounds as if they have improved the product since I last rode it during '90 Montpellier to Gare du Nord.

There were two sets coupled together; however, the premium food service you note was only available in the OTHER set. So I had to do with an utterly tasteless "Jambon et Fromage" sandwich.

Thanks, SNCF.

For 80 a head, that had better be a good meal....

Agree with the overhead easements. It's the only way from here forward on speed enhancements.

Sent from my SM-S911U using Tapatalk

GBN

Here’s a good descriptive page.
https://www.seat61.com/trains-and-routes/tgv.htm

We did rail from Romes airport to the city center Termini, from Termini to Civitavecchia to join our Fred Harvey (ok, Phil Anschutz owns it outright now, and the corporation is Xanterra) Windstar cruise, and from Barcelona Sans station to Gare de Lyon. All got the job done, quite well.