How the SNCF prepares its TGVs for the great starts of summer

While the summer holidays begin, the SNCF is ready to see the mass travelers flow : More than 12 million tickets have already been sold on the 30 million upline. Behind the scenes, maintenance agents are activated in the technicentres disseminated in several cities in France.

Because all trains must be ready in time. Those who cross the east of the country are examined in the Technicenter in Pantin, in Seine-Saint-Denis. Each day, 25 TGV trains get there and leave. Some remain on rails, outside and others are raised inside, as in a huge garage. This is where Frédéric is activated, towards the car 5 of one of these TGVs.

Helmet on the head, Fluo orange pants and vest, the technician is working in the inventory: “”There are two toilets that do not work and then lighting“. Marie, sitting in a square, notes everything on her sheet, including the defects reported by controllers during journeys. “”Anything inside, we check. And if it’s not going, we replace“She says.

We have a minimum of time to do the interventions.

Frédéric, technician at the SNCF

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During summer vacation, the 360 ​​trains of the SNCF are almost all mobilized. The teams must therefore be as effective as possible. Sometimes they only have two or three hours. By car 5, Frédéric must repair a neon. Once the problem is set, Franck, the team leader, checks a green box on the screen of his tablet, hoping that they are numerous at the end of the operations. “”During vacation periods, we have an influx which is much greater, so necessarily the degradations are more important too“, He notes.

The oars, above all, are aging: some are over 30 years old. “”Pending the TGV M, the new TGVs, we are forced to retreat a little bit of the retirement age of trainsexplains Franck. We make them beautiful, we owe it to customers at least. When you get into a train and the appearance is pretty, it’s still nicer.“”

The air conditioning must still work. Yann is just responsible for checking everything, even if his teams have already anticipated a lot. “”We start in Marchhe says. And in June, we have already done almost 300 interventions on air conditioning, the ventilation of the trains.“A work complicated by heat waves, more and more frequent.

On waves of strong heat as we have known this week, we have a lot of reports.

Yann, SNCF technician

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“”The more hot it is outside, the more there is a need for cold“, Adds Yann. Or the temperature must reach 23 degrees in the train.”If the Clim group is not effective enough, it will not compensate enough and we will start to have faults“, He said. In some cases, you have to change the air conditioning block: the fear of taking it between two and eight hours. But Yann assures that the equipment holds well:”In Morocco, they have the same oars currently circulating, it is generally the same air conditioning groups“.