The TGV La Poste were dedicated trainsets for high-speed freight and mail transportation by French railway company
SNCF
The Société nationale des chemins de fer français (, , SNCF ) is France's national State-owned enterprise, state-owned railway company. Founded in 1938, it operates the Rail transport in France, country's national rail traffic along with th ...
on behalf of the French postal carrier
La Poste. The top speed of this
TGV Sud-Est derivate was , making them the fastest freight trains in the world. They were withdrawn in 2015.
Services
The trainsets were built by
Alstom
Alstom SA () is a French multinational rolling stock manufacturer which operates worldwide in rail transport markets. It is active in the fields of passenger transportation, signaling, and locomotives, producing high-speed, suburban, regional ...
between 1978 and 1986. These
TGV units are essentially
TGV Sud-Est trainsets that are modified for transporting mail. 5 half-trainsets were built, numbered 1–5. A further two, numbered 6 and 7, were converted from former TGV-SE trainset no. 38. Each half-trainset consisted of a power car and four intermediate-trailers.
In 2009,
La Poste reduced services from 8 to 6 daily round trips.
On 21 March 2012 a demonstration freight train ran to
London-St Pancras, but there was no follow-up.
In mid-2015, La Poste ended TGV postal services, shifting mail services to
swap bodies instead as part of a major logistics restructuring and expansion which the trainsets were not capable of handling.
Additionally, the demand for fast overnight mail services has been decreasing in recent years. The final service was on 27 June 2015 between Cavaillon (
Marseille
Marseille (; ; see #Name, below) is a city in southern France, the Prefectures in France, prefecture of the Departments of France, department of Bouches-du-Rhône and of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur Regions of France, region. Situated in the ...
) and Charolais (Paris).
La Poste originally was seeking a buyer for the fleet,
however in December 2016 three trainsets were dismantled by SME (Société Métallurgique d'Épernay)
[Rapport de présentation 'Prestations de démantèlement de rames Tgv postal'. G Chan Liat (in French). 3 September 2016] leaving only a half spare trainset left.
Fleet details
See also
*
British Rail Class 325, postal EMUs used in Britain
*
FS Class ETR 500, in freight operation since October, 2018. Maximum speed is , average speed is .
References
Further reading
*
Poste, La
Non-passenger multiple units
Electric multiple units with locomotive-like power cars
Postal vehicles
Alstom multiple units
1500 V DC multiple units of France
25 kV AC multiple units
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